CHRISTIAN 
POTOT  OF  VIEW 


GEORGE  WILLIAM  KNOX 

RTHUR  CUSHMAN  MCQIFFEl 
1- KAN  CIS   BROWN 


So 


Settioo 


c  . 


THE  CHRISTIAN   POINT 
OF  VIEW 

€iim%mem^      (      MAY  18  1914 


BY 

GEORGE   WILLIAM   KNOX 

ARTHUR   CUSHMAN    McGIFFERT 

FRANCIS    BROWN 

PROFESSORS    IN    UNION    THEOLOGICAL    SEMINARY 
NEW    YORK 


%^ICAL  ^^# 


NEW  YORK 
CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 

1902 


Copyright,  1902,  bt 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

Published  September,  1902 


PREFATORY    NOTE 

These  Addresses  were  delivered  at  the 
Union  Theological  Seminary,  New  York, 
within  one  academic  year.  It  appeared 
that,  without  prearrangement,  they  were 
closely  related  in  theme  and  attitude. 
With  variety  and  even  divergence  as  to 
matters  of  detail,  they  agree  in  laying  su- 
preme emphasis  on  Jesus  Christ  as  the 
source,  standard,  guide,  and  authority  in 
Christian  knowledge  as  in  Christian  life. 
Jesus  Christ  is  presented  in  them  all  as 
affording  the  distinctively  Christian  point 
of  view. 

They  are  now  brought  together  and 
published,  in  response  to  the  request  of 
some  who  heard  them.  If  they  help  any 
persons  to  a  better  understanding  of  the 
relation  of  Christ  to  Christianity,  and 
particularly  to  Christian  thinking,  and 
thus  lead  to  a  widening  of  his  dominion 
over  the  heart  and  over  the  mind,  the 
authors  will  be  very  glad  and  grateful 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

L  The  Problem  for  the  Church   .       i 

H.  Theological  Reconstruction      .     29 

III.  The  Religious  Value  of  the  Old 

Testament 49 


I 


THE    PROBLEM    FOR   THE 
CHURCH 

AN  ADDRESS  GIVEN  AT  THE  OPENING  SERVICE 
OF  THE  SIXTY-SIXTH  ACADEMIC  YEAR  OF  UNION 
THEOLOGICAL    SEMINARY,    SEPTEMBER     26,     1 90 1 

BY 

GEORGE   WILLIAM   KNOX 

PROFESSOR    OF    THE    PHILOSOPHY    AND    HISTORY    OF    RELIGION 


THE    PROBLEM   FOR  THE 
CHURCH 

THE  agitation  for  a  change  in  the  con- 
fessional statements  of  the  Presbyte- 
rian Church  is  significant  of  a  wide-spread 
unrest.  Even  though  formal  discussion  be 
not  elsewhere  so  prominent,  yet  through- 
out the  Church  universal  there  is  discon- 
tent and  a  feeling  that  ''the  times  are  out 
of  joint."  Painfully  slow  progress  is  made 
in  winning  the  world  to  our  Lord,  and  the 
question  is  raised  whether  Christianity  so 
much  as  holds  its  own. 

Were  this  the  result  of  some  deter- 
mined attack  or  because  of  some  unusual 
obstacle  in  the  way,  the  Church  would  put 
forth  its  strength  with  faith  undaunted  as  to 
the  issue;  but  never  before  was  there  so  lit- 
tle violent  opposition,  never  before  were 

3 


4     THE    PROBLEM    FOR    THE    CHURCH 

there  so  many  open  doors,  and  never  before 
were  such  vast  resources  at  the  disposal 
of  the  Church.  Nor  are  we  chiefly  trou- 
bled by  denominational  and  party  strifes, 
for  these  are  few  and  without  unusual  bit- 
terness, but  the  difficulty  is  in  fundamental 
articles  of  the  creed  itself.  Protestants, 
advocates  of  the  broadest  education,  cham- 
pions of  free  thought,  open  to  the  in- 
tellectual currents  of  the  age,  feel  an 
influence  which  makes  them  hesitate. 
The  widening  separation  between  tradi- 
tional theology  and  the  scientific  culture 
of  our  times  produces  a  semi-paralysis  of 
faith. 

If  the  trumpet  give  an  uncertain  sound, 
who  shall  prepare  himself  for  battle,  and 
if  the  children  of  the  Church  doubt,  who 
shall  hear  their  message  ? 

In  certain  quarters,  it  is  true,  there  is  a 
renewal  of  confidence  and  a  belief  that 
conflict  is  ended  and  a  new  period  of 
peace  and  progress  begun  ;  but  the  peace 
would  seem  to  be  only  the  quiet  after 
the  battles  of  the  half-century  past,  with 


THE   PROBLEM    FOR  THE   CHURCH     5 

science  victorious  all  along  the  line,  and 
the  Church  ready  neither  to  renew  the 
conflict  nor  to  consider  seriously  the 
actual  situation.  There  can  be  no  well- 
grounded  hope  as  to  the  future,  and  no 
helpful  appeal  to  the  present,  until  the 
Church  once  more  sees  clearly  the  truth  it 
must  teach,  and  is  able  to  state  with  deep- 
est conviction  the  message  it  has  received. 
Meanwhile  discussion,  and  not  misplaced 
confidence  and  premature  peace,  is  our 
need,  if  we  are  to  win  triumphs  in  the  time 
to  come. 

The  problem  for  the  Church  is  not  to 
be  found  among  the  great  questions  of  the 
past,  of  Calvinism  and  Arminianism,  of 
sacraments  and  orders,  of  ritual  and  or- 
ganization, of  the  Trinity  and  the  atone- 
ment; nor  is  it  among  the  questions,  so 
sharply  debated  in  recent  years,  of  authen- 
ticity and  inerrancy,  of  inspiration  and 
revelation.  All  these,  important  and  con- 
nected not  remotely  with  the  essential 
truths  of  our  religion,  are  not  central,  and 
their  answer  will  not  decide  our  issue. 


6    THE   PROBLEM    FOR  THE   CHURCH 

For  we  are  concerned  with  the  greatest 
of  problems  debated  through  the  ages. 
Back  from  all  outworks,  back  through  all 
interior  lines  of  defence,  we  have  been 
forced,  and  the  question  of  all  questions  is 
once  more  raised  within  the  confines  of 
the  Church  itself,  What  think  we  of  God  ? 

The  situation  is  not  arbitrary.  It  is 
not  devised  by  any  set  of  men.  It  is  not 
thrust  upon  us  by  atheists,  nor  planned  by 
wicked  men  who  would  cast  aside  Je- 
hovah's bands  from  them,  nor  does  it  arise 
from  the  restless  curiosity  of  philosophers 
intent  on  some  new  thing.  Nor,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  it  the  outcome  of  the  doubt, 
or  ignorance,  or  bigotry,  or  rationalism, 
or  traditionalism  of  the  Church.  It  is 
formed  by  the  great  intellectual  movement 
of  our  age  and  inseparable  from  it.  It  is 
forced  upon  us  because  the  Church  is  not 
asleep  in  a  cloister,  but  participates  in  the 
interests  of  living  men.  Great  historic 
movements  beyond  man's  control  meet 
together,  and  at  the  meeting-place  we  ask 
ourselves  again,  What  think  we  of  God  ? 


THE   PROBLEM   FOR   THE   CHURCH     7 

The  importance  of  the  question  needs 
no  discussion.  ReUgion  for  any  individ- 
ual is  communion  with  the  God  he  knows. 
The  description  of  this  God  is  his  the- 
ology, its  adoration  is  his  worship,  and 
obedience  to  its  commands  is  his  rule  of 
life.  The  central  religious  fact  is  com- 
munion with  God,  or,  in  more  technical 
language,  it  is  the  realization  in  experi- 
ence of  the  truth  set  forth  in  creed. 

This  inner  reality  finds  expression   in 
acts   of  praise,   worship,    and    obedience, 
and  its  content  is  expressed  in  creed  and 
confession.     Without  experience,  worship 
is  a  vain  form,  but  none  the  less  the  ex- 
perience   itself    can    be    fully  real    only 
through  appropriate  expression.     So,  too, 
theology  without  the  living  experience  is 
the  most  formal   and  unsatisfying  of  phi- 
losophies; but,  equally,  experience  sepa- 
rated from  the  conceptions  embodied  in 
confession    and   creed    is  empty,  a  thing 
impossible,    a   feeling    without    contents. 
The    three,   worship,    theology,    and    ex- 
perience, are  indissolubly  bound  together 


8     THE   PROBLEM    FOR   THE    CHURCH 

in     the    unity    of    feeling,    thought,     and 
will. 

Thus  it  is  that  experience  varies  with 
the  various  objects  worshipped,  and, 
equally,  the  object  worshipped  varies  with 
our  varying  experience.  Indeed,  the  two 
are  opposite  sides  of  one  reality,  to  be 
wholly  separated  at  our  peril.  As  the  old 
saying  teaches  that  the  same  thing  done 
by  different  men  is  not  the  same  thing,  so 
may  we  say  of  ourselves.  The  same  ex- 
perience at  different  times  and  under  dif- 
fering circumstances  is  not  the  same  ex- 
perience. That  which  we  call  the  same 
varies  with  our  varying  consciousness. 
So  we  have  learned  that  there  is  no  o^en- 
era!  reason,  everywhere  and  always  the 
same,  but  reason  differing  in  method,  con- 
tents, and  principles,  a  reason  Occidental 
and  a  reason  Oriental,  a  reason  differing 
with  race  and  age  and  nation,  indeed  in 
some  degree  with  every  individual.  So  is 
it  emphatically  with  religion.  Religion  in 
general  is  almost  meaningless,  a  religion 
reduced  to  the  lowest  terms  and  defecated 


THE   PROBLEM    FOR   THE   CHURCH     9 

to  a  transparency.  A  religion  according 
to  Confucius,  or  according  to  Buddha,  or 
according  to  the  lowest  savage  tribes,  we 
know,  but  reHgion  in  general,  this  we 
know  only  to  discover  that  it  is  merely  a 
verbal  classification,  a  starting-point  for 
real  thought.  For  no  general  term  can 
give  us  the  fulness  of  the  most  meagre 
concrete  reality,  still  less  of  God.  He 
cannot  be  known  by  generalizing  the  re- 
sults of  our  studies  of  all  the  gods,  nor  can 
our  religion  consist  in  the  realization  of  so 
artificial  an  abstraction  in  experience.  No 
lesson  taught  by  the  science  of  compara- 
tive religion  is  plainer  than  this. 

Each  great  religion  has  its  object  of  su- 
preme adoration  and  its  own  form  of  re- 
ligious experience.  In  every  great  historic 
religious  community  are  men  learned  in 
scriptures  and  philosophy,  but  finding  plea- 
sure solely  in  the  intellectual  pursuit ;  In 
all  are  many  who  are  devoted  in  form 
only,  going  with  the  multitude  who  keep 
holy  day ;  but  In  all  alike  are  some  who 
verify    in    experience    that   which    Is  ex- 


10     THE    PROBLEM    FOR   THE    CHURCH 

pressed  in  the  creed.  In  these  men  re- 
ligion hves  and  moves  and  has  its  being. 
From  them  only  can  we  learn  the  true 
meaning  of  the  religious  symbols,  and 
they  only  are  competent  witnesses  to  the 
faith.  Thus  it  is  not  by  comparing  true 
Christians  with  hypocrites  and  formalists 
in  other  religions,  but  only  by  comparing 
the  best  with  the  best,  saints  with  saints, 
that  we  can  estimate  aright  the  value  of 
the  differing  faiths. 

Thus  comparing,  we  cannot  find  that  all 
alike  worship,  under  varying  names,  the 
same  Supreme  Being,  or  that  all  alike  seek 
the  same  orreat  end.     Such  a  oreneraliza- 

o  o 

tion  makes  an  abstract  Infinite  supreme 
and  finds  worship  truest  as  it  is  most  emp- 
tied of  all  positive  content,  and  religious 
experience  at  highest  to  be  a  vague,  inde- 
scribable state  of  feeling,  best  of  all  if  so 
vague  that  no  positive  term  can  be  ap- 
plied to  it.  But  such  theology,  whose  high- 
est word  is  the  Unknowable,  and  such 
worship,  mysticism  in  its  purest  form,  is 
not   the   actual    religious   experience  dis- 


THE   PROBLEM    FOR   THE   CHURCH     ii 

closed  by  the  study  of  living  representa- 
tives of  the  ethnic  faiths.  Buddhist  and 
Confucianist  neither  worship  the  same  be- 
ing nor  seek  the  same  end,  and  the  great 
Chinese  philosophers  of  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury A.D.  were  right  in  breaking  the  al- 
liance between  the  two  religions  which 
had  lasted  for  a  thousand  years.  What 
Confucius  affirmed,  Buddha  denied,  and 
the  highest  virtue  of  the  Buddhist  appeared 
the  act  of  a  madman  to  the  followers  of 
the  Sage.  The  solution  of  the  religious 
problem  cannot  be  found  in  melting  down 
differences  into  an  undifferentiated,  color- 
less, all-embracing  unity.  Such  a  process 
in  physics  gives  us  chaos  instead  of  cos- 
mos, in  psychology  the  first  stirrings  of 
life  in  the  infant,  and  in  religion  at  best 
only  the  raw  material  out  of  which  the 
mature  religious  life  has  come.  Nor  can 
we  combine  more  positively  the  elements 
of  the  differing  religions,  for  syncretism 
is  always  weak,  bearing  within  itself  a 
contradiction  which  ends  in  death.  A  re- 
ligion of  all  religions  either  annexes  all  to 


12     THE    PROBLEM    FOR   THE   CHURCH 

one  or  saves  all  at  the  expense  of  losing 
in  each  precisely  that  which  is  best  worth 
saving. 

Not,  then,  by  generalization  nor  by  syn- 
cretism, but  by  differentiation  must  we  seek 
the  solution  of  our  problem.  And  if  we 
still  dream  of  some  higher  unity,  it  shall 
be  won  as  each  is  true  to  the  truth  as  he 
sees  it,  and  as  each  religion  and  each  in- 
dividual clearly  defines  the  object  of  his 
adoration  in  his  thought  and  realizes  it  in 
his  experience.  We  would,  then,  empha- 
size the  adjective  and  study  the  problem 
of  the  Christian  faith. 

No  doubt  we  are  agreed  in  this,  but  if 
we  are  thus  to  differentiate,  if  the  way  to 
God  is  not  by  compromise  with  Buddha 
or  Confucius  or  the  Hindu  faith,  we  can- 
not stop  at  this  point,  but  must  follow  it  to 
the  end. 

What,  then,  does  the  Christian  worship  ? 
The  answer  is  not  doubtful  —  God.  He  is 
the  centre  of  our  theology;  to  know  him  Is 
the  religious  life,  to  praise  him  and  pray 
to  him  is  worship,  and  to  obey  him  is  mo- 


THE    PROBLEM    FOR   THE    CHURCH     13 

rality.  How,  then,  is  he  made  known  ? 
Dwell  a  moment  on  the  question,  for  the 
word  God  helps  us  not  at  all,  since  ''  all 
men  yearn  after  the  gods."  What  does  the 
word  God  mean  to  us,  to  Christians  ? 

How  do  we  learn  of  him  ?  Aeain  the 
answer  is  unquestioned  —  through  Christ. 
So  the  Church  believes  :  "  Light  of  light, 
very  God  of  very  God."  So  the  Scrip- 
tures testify  :  *'  He  that  hath  seen  me  hath 
seen  the  Father;  how  sayest  thou  then. 
Show  us  the  Father  ? "  To  us,  though 
God  spake  to  the  fathers  by  the  prophets 
by  divers  portions  and  in  divers  manners, 
yet  is  his  message  through  his  Son,  who  is 
the  effulgence  of  his  glory  and  the  very 
image  of  his  substance.  As  the  Christian 
sees  this  glory  he  exclaims,  "•  My  Lord 
and  my  God  !  " 

But  though  the  answer  is  so  obvious, 
writ  so  large  upon  the  page  we  call  the 
Word  of  God,  yet,  as  matter  of  fact,  the- 
ology has  travelled  by  quite  a  different 
road.  In  general,  we  may  say,  it  has 
sought  to  go  up  through  nature  to  nature's 


14     THE    PROBLEM    FOR   THE    CHURCH 

God,  to  God  as  Creator  of  nature,  his  wis- 
dom and  power  seen  through  nature,  his 
attributes  described  and  analyzed  by  a 
method  learned  in  schools  far  other  than 
those  of  the  apostles  and  prophets.  Thus 
it  has  been  the  God  of  reason  and  nature 
first,  with  proofs  from  nature,  at  most  sup- 
plemented with  Scripture  texts.  And  the 
revelation  of  God  in  Christ,  if  it  appear  at 
all,  has  been  given  an  inconspicuous  place, 
the  lessons  he  teaches  made  an  appendix 
to  a  natural  theology. 

The  present  problem  for  the  Church 
follows  as  matter  of  course.  For  our 
view  of  nature  changes  with  every  change 
in  science  and  philosophy,  and  with  this 
change  of  view  must  our  notions  of  the 
God  of  nature  change.  Thus  natural  the- 
ology is  the  handmaid  of  natural  science. 
Given  a  certain  physics,  logic,  and  ontol- 
ogy, and  a  corresponding  view  of  God 
emerges.  Change  those,  and  this,  too,  shall 
change.  For  the  two  are  one,  nature  the 
living  garment  of  the  Almighty,  and  God 
the  inner  reality  of  the  outer  world.     With 


THE   PROBLEM    FOR   THE   CHURCH     15 

this  as  basis,  no  wonder  the  Church  is  sore 
perplexed. 

For  all  nature  is  transformed.  In  phys- 
ics, metaphysics,  and  anthropology  the 
revolution  is  complete.  It  is  no  longer 
subject  of  debate.  From  kindergarten  to 
university  the  old  has  passed  away.  It  is 
not  a  change  in  mere  details,  but,  behold, 
all  things  are  become  new,  and  not  only 
in  the  outer  world,  for  man  himself  has 
changed.  The  old  logic  no  longer  con- 
vinces him,  the  old  philosophy  no  longer 
controls  his  thought,  the  old  problems  no 
longer  interest.  With  a  new  reason  and 
a  new  soul,  man  looks  out  upon  a  new 
heaven  and  a  new  earth.  Our  fathers 
two  ofenerations  back  were  nearer  to  the 
men  of  Greece  and  Rome  than  to  our- 
selves. Their  discussions  are  as  unreal 
to  us,  like  the  strife  of  puppets  beating  the 
air.  How,  then,  can  our  problem  fail  to 
press  for  its  solution?  The  wonder  is 
that  so  many  remain  undisturbed,  and  that, 
on  the  whole,  faith  still  stands  so  firm. 
But   the    question  will  not  down.     With 


i6     THE    PROBLEM    FOR   THE   CHURCH 

all  nature  transformed,  is  the  Christian's 
God  still  the  same  ?  Can  we  worship  him 
our  fathers  worshipped  and  still  call  our- 
selves by  the  same  sacred  name  ? 

To  this  question  there  are  many  an- 
swers : 

Some  reply  directly :  No.  Theology 
falls  with  the  old  philosophy  and  science. 
In  the  name  of  truth  we  renounce  the 
faith,  though  the  universe  lose  its  soul  of 
loveliness  thereby.  The  answer  is  natural, 
for  the  dilemma  has  been  formed  by  the 
Church  itself,  and  if  the  dilemma  hold,  if 
the  way  is  up  through  nature  to  nature's 
God,  then  it  is  inevitable.  But  the  dilem- 
ma is  false.  The  Christian  knows  his  God 
not  through  nature,  but  through  Jesus 
Christ. 

Just  as  unsound  is  the  dilemma  if  we 
take  its  other  horn  with  many,  and  say: 
We  defy  the  new.  We  have  certainty  and 
finality  in  our  theology,  and  it  shall  not 
chanofe  with  chancrina-  times.  But  this  is 
a  losing  fight,  half-hearted,  with  yieldings 
here  and  there  which  really  yield  all.     The 


THE   PROBLEM   FOR   THE   CHURCH     17 

position  is  the  very  centre  of  the  unrest  of 
the  Church.  To  yield  it  wholly  is  the  only 
way  to  peace.  Half-measures  are  of  no 
avail,  though  some  still  strive  to  patch  the 
old  with  the  new, — notwithstanding  our 
Lord's  words, — attempting  the  impossible. 

Others  turn  from  it  all  and  busy  them- 
selves with  cult  and  organization  and  pass- 
ing activities.  They  refuse  to  think,  and 
fancy  the  problem  solved  because  forgotten. 
However  possible  this  for  the  individual, 
it  is  impossible  for  the  Church,  for  thus  it 
forfeits  its  character  as  Protestant  and  re- 
turns on  the  way  to  Rome. 

Again,  some  from  the  same  logical  po- 
sition would  reconstruct.  Through  the 
new  nature  they  will  pass  to  God.  We 
shall  have  a  new  theology  formed  on  the 
model  seen  in  the  doctrine  of  evolution 
and  in  full  accord  with  a  science  only  a 
few  years  out  of  date  —  a  scheme  possi- 
ble, or  more  likely  impossible,  but  in  any 
case  giving  us  as  the  result  not  the  Chris- 
tian but  a  new  nature  God. 

Or,  interested  chiefly  in  philosophy,  we 


iS    THE   PROBLEM   FOR  THE   CHURCH 

shall  flee  from  transcendence  to  imma- 
nence, magnify,  perhaps  ignorantly,  the 
Greek  theologians,  or  try  to  construct  an 
absolute  out  of  knowledge,  completing 
Aristotle's  thought.  Illuminating,  deeply 
religious,  we  may  succeed  in  transfiguring 
the  world  and  in  making  every  place  holy 
ground.  But  even  so,  the  result  will  be 
one  more  profound  and  transcendental 
philosophy,  one  more  system  to  have  its 
day  and  cease  to  be. 

Or,  finally,  we  may  turn  to  the  Christian 
experience  and  ask  its  guidance.  But 
though  priceless,  and  though  in  theology 
it  must  ever  aid  in  defining  and  proving 
truth,  yet  has  it  no  deep  well  of  its  own 
from  which  it  can  minister  to  our  need. 
Linked  indissolubly  to  its  object,  it  points 
not  to  itself,  but  to  him. 

Let  us,  then,  turn  to  him,  that  we  may 
ask  our  Lord.  To  whom  else  shall  the 
Christian  turn,  since  he  only  has  the  words 
of  eternal  life  ?  Let  us  o-q  to  Christ  and 
listen  to  him  —  not  to  the  sonorous  words 
of  the  Westminster  divines,   not  even  to 


THE    PROBLEM    FOR   THE    CHURCH     19 

the  accents  of  Christian  prayers  and  hymns, 
not  even  to  the  inspired  utterance  of 
prophets  and  apostles,  but  to  himself 
How  vast  the  contrast  his  words  present 
to  all  formal  theology  !  Natural  theology 
leads  us  to  a  God  perfect  in  wisdom  and 
power,  omnipotent  and  omniscient,  it  says  ; 
philosophy  leads  us  to  a  God  all-perfect 
in  being,  or  to  a  God  who  is  perfect 
thought,  or  infinite,  eternal  will.  The- 
ology joins  these  together  and  adds  the 
holiness  of  the  ancient  prophets  of  Israel's 
God  and  declares  God  is  perfect ;  then 
God  is  a  spirit,  infinite,  eternal,  and  un- 
changeable in  his  being,  wisdom,  power, 
holiness,  justice,  goodness,  and  truth.  As 
the  sonorous  words  echo  in  our  ears,  our 
souls  are  filled  with  wonder,  reverence, 
and  awe.  God  seems,  in  the  mystery  of 
his  being,  past  finding  out.  His  perfect- 
ness  separates  him  from  us  and  hides  him 
like  a  veil,  and  we  perceive  him  dimly,  far 
away.  It  is  only  one  more  little  step,  and 
our  great  words  defining  the  infinite,  the 
undefinable,  themselves  disappear,  and  we 


20     THE    PROBLEM    FOR  THE    CHURCH 

are  one  with  all  who  have  ascended  thus 
to  the  presence  of  that  which  transcends 
all  thought.  Only  the  feeling  of  wonder- 
ing awe  remains.  We  are  like  the  nature- 
priest  before  the  shrine : 


Not  knowing  what  it  is,  grateful  tears  he  weeps. 

But  turn  to  the  Christ  and  ask  our  Lord : 
''God  is  the  perfect  one,  supreme,  complete. 
What  is  he  like,  what  is  the  characteristic 
of  his  perfectness  ?  "  And  now  from  his 
lips  comes  no  word  of  science  or  philoso- 
phy, no  word  that  must  be  translated  when 
uttered  to  the  babes  and  sucklings  in  the 
faith,  but  —  take  off  thy  shoes  from  off 
thy  feet,  for  the  ground  on  which  thou  stand- 
est  is  holy  ground  —  *' Be  ye  therefore 
perfect,  as  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven 
is  perfect."  (We  perfect,  as  he  is  perfect !) 
"  For  he  maketh  his  sun  to  rise  on  the  evil 
and  on  the  good,  and  sendeth  rain  on  the 
just  and  on  the  unjust.  For  if  ye  love 
them  which  love  you,  what  reward  have 
ye?  do  not  even  the  publicans  the  same? 
And  if  ye  salute  your  brethren  only,  what 


THE   PROBLEM    FOR   THE   CHURCH     21 

do  ye  more  than  others  ?  do  not  even  the 
pubHcans  so  ?  But  I  say  unto  you,  Love 
your  enemies,  bless  them  that  curse  you,  do 
good  to  them  that  hate  you,  and  pray  for 
them  that  despitefully  use  you,  and  perse- 
cute you ;  that  ye  may  be  the  children  of 
your  Father  which  is  in  heaven."  Thus, 
thus  are  we  to  be  perfect,  as  our  Father  in 
heaven  is  perfect.  Does  he  thus  deal  with 
those  who  curse  him  and  despitefully  use 
him,  and  is  he,  who  makes  sun  to  shine 
and  rain  to  fall,  thereby  perfect?  And 
there  rises  before  us  the  image  of  one 
whose  visage  was  marred,  who  was  cursed, 
hated,  despitefully  used  and  persecuted, 
who,  led  like  a  lamb  to  the  slaughter, 
opened  not  his  mouth,  and  on  the  cross 
prayed  for  those  who  slew  him.  And  we 
understand  in  his  light,  saying:  ''We 
have  seen  thee,  we  have  seen  the  Father." 
Who  ever  else  in  any  land  or  time  thus 
described  the  perfectness  of  God?  Who 
else  ever  thus  made  such  perfectness  visible 
before  our  eyes  ?  To  him  who  thus  sees 
Christ  full  of  grace  and  truth   as  of  the 


22     THE   PROBLEM    FOR   THE   CHURCH 

only  begotten  Son  of  God,  to  him  who 
catches  a  gHmpse  of  that  supreme  glory, 
all  else  is  secondary.  It  sufficeth  him. 
He  has  found  him  of  whom  Moses  and  the 
prophets  did  write,  and  hewill  not  turn  back 
even  to  them  who,  after  all,  saw  afar  off 
and  through  a  veil,  and  without  us  were 
not  made  perfect. 

The  solution  is  simple.  It  makes  su- 
preme what  Christ  made  supreme.  It 
sees  God  perfect  as  Christ  saw  him  per- 
fect. It  takes  the  place  of  honor  from  on- 
tology and  science,  and  gives  it  to  ethics. 
It  turns  our  thought  from  the  world  with- 
out to  conscience  within.  It  fills  our  souls 
not  with  wonder  and  amaze,  but  with  hu- 
mility, faith,  and  love.  It  leads  us  not 
along  the  road  of  dialectics  to  our  God, 
but  by  the  great  highway  of  service  to 
our  fellow-men.  The  solution  is  simple. 
It  is  the  open  secret  of  Jesus.  It  is  the 
truth  which  has  ever  been  the  hidina-  of 
the  Church's  power,  the  truth  of  praise 
and  prayer,  of  help  in  the  hour  of  need, 
of   salvation    from    sin.     It    is    the    truth 


THE   PROBLEM    FOR   THE    CHURCH     23 

which  makes  men  strong,  which  women 
love  and  saints  reveal.  But  thus  simple 
as  life  itself  and  true  as  our  Christian 
faith,  let  us  not  mistake — adopted  with 
full  consciousness  of  its  meaning  in  our 
systems,  it  will  revolutionize  theology,  and, 
more,  adopted  with  full  power  in  our  lives, 
it  will  revolutionize  the  world. 

Problems  enough  remain  of  high  inter- 
est, problems  of  criticism,  of  history,  of 
physical  science,  of  philosophy.  They  are 
of  great  importance,  but  their  connection 
with  the  Christian  Church  is  at  most  only 
indirect.  No  doubt  we  shall  find  profit 
and  pleasure  and  even  religious  exaltation 
in  their  study.  But  so  in  many  lands  have 
men  who  have  never  heard  of  Christ. 
What  is  the  relation  of  the  infinite  and  the 
finite,  of  the  relative  and  the  absolute,  of 
omnipotence  and  man's  freedom;  how  man 
has  developed  in  his  long  history  on  earth; 
how  the  world  was  formed  and  how  it  is 
maintained  —  these  and  a  thousand  more 
shall  occupy  men  in  the  future  as  in  the 
past;  but,  change  as  our  conceptions  may. 


24     THE    PROBLEM    FOR  THE    CHURCH 

wax  old  and  vanish  as  all  our  knowledo^e 
will,  the  truth  of  Christ  stands  sure.  He 
has  shown  us  the  Father,  and  it  sufficeth 
us. 

Faith  doubtless  unites  the  God  of  su- 
preme grace  and  truth  revealed  by  Christ 
with  the  God  of  wisdom,  power,  and  life. 
Christ  doubted  not  that  his  Father  could 
work  his  loving  will. 

Nor  will  faith  doubt  that  truth.  It  can- 
not rest  in  a  dualism  of  power  and  love, 
but  certain  as  is  this  process  of  belief,  he 
who  knows  his  Lord  will  not  return  to  the 
method  of  the  past.  By  Christ  he  will  go 
to  God,  and  not  through  nature's  God  to 
Christ.  Christ  is  first,  and  his  truth  re- 
vealed immediately  to  the  soul  shines 
clear.  Religion  shall  not  be  the  final  step 
in  a  logical  process,  but  the  light  in  which 
the  Christian  soul  sees  all  the  rest.  Phys- 
ics and  ontology  and  anthropology  have 
no  authority  in  this  domain.  It  is  not 
because  of  the  mighty  firmament,  nor  be- 
cause of  circling  worlds,  nor  because  of 
some  law  of  evolution,  nor  because  of  the 


THE   PROBLEM    FOR   THE   CHURCH     25 

necessity  for  a  first  great  cause,  nor  be- 
cause we  discern  final  causes,  that  we  as 
Christians  believe  in  God,  but  because  we 
have  seen  him  perfect  and  therefore  must 
believe. 

But  some  doubter  will  say,  Is  there  not 
danger  in  making  all  to  rest  thus  upon  the 
supreme  grace  in  Jesus  Christ,  both  the 
proof  of  God  and  the  definition  of  his  per- 
fectness  ?  Can  we  dare  to  stake  the  issue 
on  this,  giving  up  our  claims  to  under- 
stand the  universe  with  its  powers  as 
introductory  to  our  proof  of  God  ?  Doubt- 
less it  is  dangerous  if  God  be  supremely 
power  or  wisdom.  For  these  we  must 
seek  in  the  world  of  power  and  wisdom. 
Then  is  his  supreme  revelation  the  natural 
process  of  the  world,  and  if  we  find  him 
not  in  this  we  find  him  not  at  all.  But  if 
the  Christian's  God  be  he  whom  Christ 
revealed,  the  one  in  whom  grace  and  love 
are  supreme,  then  certain  as  the  facts  of 
our  deepest  consciousness  is  the  certainty 
that  he  is  and  that  he  saves  all  those  who 
put  their  trust  in  him.     But  could  the  soul 


26     THE    PROBLEM    FOR   THE    CHURCH 

doubt,  could  it  believe  that  the  supreme 
moral  virtue  in  Jesus  Christ  were  not  the 
revelation  of  the  God  of  power  and  wis- 
dom, then  it  could  not  hesitate,  for  to  die 
with  Christ  would  be  far  better  than  to 
live  in  a  world  where  mere  power  or  wis- 
dom rules  supreme. 

Nor  can  the  Christian  admit  a  danger 
to  the  faith  from  this  whole-hearted  reli- 
ance upon  Christ.  For  our  difficulty  has 
arisen,  as  I  have  pointed  out,  from  the 
other  course.  With  philosophy  and 
through  science  we  have  looked  upon  the 
world  and  argued  the  existence  of  a  nature- 
God.  But  the  philosophy  and  the  science 
pass  away,  and  the  faith  which  rests 
thereon  disappears.  We  would  not  re- 
peat the  error.  It  is  not  true  that  men 
do  not  respond  to  the  highest  truth,  nor 
can  it  be  that  the  Church  will  hesitate  to 
make  its  appeal  to  the  holiest  element  in 
humanity. 

To  sum  up :  The  Christian  sees  God  in 
Christ.  The  essential  perfectness  of  God 
is  shown  in  forgiveness,  love,  and  blessing. 


THE   PROBLEM    FOR   THE    CHURCH     27 

His  perfectness  commands  our  conscience, 
and  in  his  light  we  see  the  highest  glory 
in  lowliest  service.      But  we  see  our  sin- 
fulness, for,  alas !    far  other  motives  have 
controlled    our    conduct ;    but    the    same 
knowledge  which  condemns  us  heals,  for  it 
is  the  revelation  of  forgiving  love  which  at 
once  condemns  and  pardons.     With  this 
experience  in    our  souls,  knowing  imme- 
diately that  this  only  is  to  be  worshipped 
and  adored,  our  lives,  by  the  same  neces- 
sity, shall   show  our  faith.      This  it  is   to 
see    the    Christian's    God,    to   realize    his 
presence  in  experience,  and  to  embody  his 
law  in  our  lives.      To  disentangle  the  wor- 
ship of  the  Christian  God  from  the  nature- 
worship  which  has  usurped  its  place,  and 
to  make  Christian  love  supreme    in    the 
world  of  men,  this  is  to  solve  the  problem 
for  the  Church  and  for  the  world,  for  this 
age  and  for  all  time. 


II 

THEOLOGICAL 
RECONSTRUCTION 

AN    ADDRESS    GIVEN    AT    THE    UNION    THEOLOGI- 
CAL  SEMINARY   ALUMNI    BANQUET,   MAY     12,    1 902 

BY 

ARTHUR   CUSHMAN   McGIFFERT 

WASHBURN    PROFESSOR    OF    CHURCH     HISTORY 


THEOLOGICAL 
RECONSTRUCTION 

THE  present  is  a  time  of  great  theo- 
logical unrest.  Especially  among 
those  who  are  wide  awake  and  open- 
minded,  and  who  are  in  sympathy  with 
the  modern  world  and  feel  its  influence, 
there  is  marked  uncertainty  and  doubt. 
Many  Christian  men  and  women  are  com- 
plaining that  they  do  not  know  what  to 
think  or  what  to  believe,  and  even  some 
ministers  seem  to  be  all  at  sea,  and  quite 
without  a  positive  and  definite  and  clear- 
cut  message  to  bring  to  their  people. 
There  can  be  no  question  that  as  a  conse- 
quence the  progress  of  the  gospel  is  seri- 
ously impeded  in  many  quarters.  The 
existing  difficulties  are  due  to  various 
causes,  among  others  to  the  modern  criti- 
31 


32   THEOLOGICAL   RECONSTRUCTION 

cal  philosophy  which  has  made  the  old 
Platonic  and  Neoplatonic  view  of  God 
and  man,  that  prevailed  for  so  many  cen- 
turies within  the  Church,  impossible  to 
many  leaders  of  theological  thought ;  still 
more  to  modern  science,  which  has  changed 
entirely  traditional  ideas  of  the  world,  not 
among  theologians  simply,  but  among  the 
masses  as  well ;  in  part,  also,  to  modern 
missions,  which  have  broken  down  forever 
the  old  comfortable  and  selfish  doctrines 
of  election  and  the  old  narrow  interpreta- 
tions of  the  gospel,  and  have  set  many  to 
wondering  whether  a  knowledo^e  of  Christ 
is  really  necessary  to  salvation,  and  whe- 
ther Christianity  is  really  God's  only  reve- 
lation to  men  in  these  latter  days ;  and 
finally,  and  just  now  most  patently,  to 
modern  historical  criticism,  which  has  de- 
stroyed the  old  view  of  the  Bible,  and  has 
thrown  multitudes  into  dire  confusion  as 
to  where  to  look  for  religious  authority, 
and  as  to  what  to  believe  on  all  sorts  of 
religious  questions.  No  careful  observer 
of  present  conditions    can    fail  to  realize 


THEOLOGICAL    RECONSTRUCTION    33 

that  something  is  needed,  though  there 
may  be  a  wide  difference  of  opinion  as  to 
what  it  is.  I  venture  to  think,  in  com- 
mon with  many  others,  that  one  of  the 
most  crying  needs  of  the  day  is  a  genuine 
and  thoroughgoing  reconstruction  of  our 
traditional  theology  —  a  reconstruction 
that  shall  bring  out  clearly  and  give  the 
proper  emphasis  to  the  great  underlying 
principles  of  Christianity,  which  have  been 
obscured  by  so  much  temporary  and  un- 
essential matter,  and  about  which  there  is 
to-day  so  wide-spread  an  uncertainty  and 
doubt. 

But  reconstruction  that  is  to  be  any- 
thing more  than  an  aimless  and  haphazard 
revision  can  be  accomplished  only  under 
the  control  of  some  definite  principle  great 
enough  and  far-reaching  enough  to  form 
the  basis  of  the  entire  system.  Have 
we,  then,  any  such  principle  ?  Are  we 
already  in  possession  of  it,  or  are  we  only 
groping  for  it?  I  venture  to  believe  that 
we  have  such  a  principle,  and  that  a  the- 
ological   reconstruction,     not    merely    of 


34   THEOLOGICAL    RECONSTRUCTION 

temporary  but  of  permanent  significance, 
has  already  begun,  and  under  the  hands 
of  many  fellow- workers  on  both  sides  the 
sea  is  going  rapidly  forward  —  a  theologi- 
cal reconstruction  which  will  mean  ulti- 
mately a  greater  transformation  than  any 
the  Church  has  witnessed  since  the  Prot- 
estant Reformation. 

There  are  many,  it  is  true,  who  say  it  is 
too  soon  to  reconstruct ;  that  the  modern 
view  of  the  world,  the  new  conceptions  in 
philosophy,  the  new  theories  in  science, 
are  not  yet  sufficiently  tested,  or  their 
bearing  sufficiently  understood.  If  a  re- 
construction of  theology  means  the  forma- 
tion of  a  system  upon  the  basis  of  modern 
philosophy  or  modern  science,  I  quite 
agree  with  such  objectors.  We  are  not 
yet  ready  for  such  a  work,  and  when  we 
are  our  reconstruction  will  be  already  out 
of  date. 

But  I  contend,  and  in  my  contention  I 
am  happy  to  find  myself  in  agreement 
with  the  published  views  of  two  of  my 
honored    and    beloved    colleagues, —  Dr. 


THEOLOGICAL   RECONSTRUCTION    35 

William  Adams  Brown  in  his  inaugural  on 
''  Christ  the  Vitalizing  Principle  of  Chris- 
tian Theology,"  and  Dr.  Knox  in  his  ad- 
dress on  "  The  Problem  for  the  Church," 
given  at  the  opening  of  the  present  semi- 
nary year, — I  contend,  I  say,  that  the 
proper  basis  for  a  Christian  theology — 
the  only  theology  I  am  talking  about  —  is 
altogether  different ;  that  it  is  the  historic 
figure  Jesus  Christ  and  the  revelation 
which  he  has  brought.  And  I  contend 
that  we  are  already  in  a  position  to  recon- 
struct our  theology  on  that  basis,  in  a  bet- 
ter position  than  ever  before,  because  the 
life  and  work  of  Jesus  Christ  are  better 
understood  to-day  than  they  have  ever 
been.  The  trouble  with  most  of  the  his- 
toric theologies  is  that  they  have  not  been 
based  upon  the  life  and  work  of  Jesus  ; 
that  they  have  been,  in  fact,  almost  every- 
thing else  but  genuinely  Christian  theolo- 
gies. In  the  system  of  the  Alexandrian 
theologians  the  eternal  Logos,  not  the 
historic  figure  Jesus  Christ,  had  the  place 
of  prominence ;   in  the  system  of  Angus- 


36   THEOLOGICAL    RECONSTRUCTION 

tine  the  twofold  conception  of  God  as  the 
alone  source  of  good  and  as  absolute  will 
was  dominant,  and  Jesus  Christ  was  quite 
unnecessary;  to  the  mediaeval  theologians 
only  his  relation  to  the  sacramental  sys- 
tem and  to  the  treasury  of  merits  was  im- 
portant ;  to  Calvin  the  sovereign  decree 
of  God  was  the  constructive  principle,  and 
the  figure  of  Jesus  occupied  a  subsidiary 
place.  And  so  in  more  recent  days  we 
have  had  theological  reconstructions  based 
upon  the  conception  of  the  Church  as  the 
perpetual  incarnation,  the  mystical  body  of 
the  Son  of  God ;  upon  the  doctrine  of  the 
divine  immanence ;  upon  the  theory  of 
evolution  ;  and  most  recently  of  all  upon 
the  principle  of  personality,  which  has 
been  especially  emphasized  in  one  of  the 
latest  books  upon  theological  reconstruc- 
tion. We  have  had  plenty  of  reconstruc- 
tions upon  all  sorts  of  bases,  but  upon  the 
basis  of  Jesus  Christ's  revelation  we  have 
had  very  few. 

The  great  significance  of  the  work  of 
Martin  Luther  was  his  recognition  of  the 


THEOLOGICAL    RECONSTRUCTION   37 

central  place  of  Jesus  Christ  in  all  Christian 
living  and  thinking.  But  Luther  was  not 
a  systematic  theologian,  and  to  much  of  the 
traditional  theology  he  failed  to  apply  his 
controlling  principle,  and  so  handed  on  to 
his  successors  a  large  part  of  that  theol- 
ogy quite  unchanged,  and  they,  instead  of 
completing  his  work,  forgot  altogether  his 
fundamental  gospel,  and  put  the  Bible  in 
the  place  which  he  had  given  to  Christ ; 
and  very  soon  the  various  systems  of  Prot- 
estant dogmatics  had  become  ostensibly,  if 
not  in  reality,  biblical  theologies,  to  the 
almost  complete  obscuring  of  the  Chris- 
tian principle.  As  a  striking  illustration 
of  this  it  may  be  noticed  how  in  some 
Protestant  systems,  notably  in  the  Re- 
formed wing  of  the  Church,  the  Old  Tes- 
tament has  bulked  even  more  largely  than 
the  New. 

Again,  at  the  beginning  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  Schleiermacher  returned 
to  the  principle  of  Luther  and  recognized 
the  historic  Christ  as  the  real  starting- 
point  in  Christian  theology.     But  Schleier- 


38  THEOLOGICAL   RECONSTRUCTION 

macher  gave  so  large  a  place  to  the  re- 
ligious experience  of  Christians,  and  made 
so  much  of  his  theory  of  religion  as  the 
consciousness  of  dependence  upon  the  In- 
finite, that  he  obscured  the  Christ  princi- 
ple, and  led  most  of  his  followers  off  upon 
a  wrong  path.  Only  in  our  own  day,  by 
Albrecht  Ritschl,  has  a  really  thorough- 
going attempt  been  made  to  reconstruct 
theology  upon  the  Christian  basis.  But 
even  the  sturdiest  champion  of  Ritschl 
must  recognize  that  while  his  work  sur- 
passed in  epoch-making  importance  the 
work  of  any  other  theologian  since  the 
Reformation,  he  nevertheless  left  much 
undone,  and  the  task  of  reconstruction 
was  only  begun  by  him.  The  great  sig- 
nificance of  Ritschl  is  that  he  followed 
Luther  in  calling  the  Church  back  to  the 
historic  Christ,  and  in  emphasizing  the 
figure  of  Jesus  as  the  controlling  prin- 
ciple in  all  Christian  theology.  Here  we 
must  take  our  stand,  and  must  demand 
that  Christian  theology  shall  be  truly 
Christian  and  solely  Christian.  It  is  not 
simply  that  we  must  demand  that  Christ 


THEOLOGICAL   RECONSTRUCTION   39 

shall  be  appealed  to  In  conjunction  with 
or  even  before  speculative  philosophy  and 
nature  and  human  history,  but  that  we 
must  demand  that  Christian  theology  shall 
be  based  on  Christ  alone.  The  difficulty 
with  many  of  the  best  of  our  modern  at- 
tempts at  theological  reconstruction  is  that, 
while  they  recognize  the  supreme  impor- 
tance of  the  Christian  revelation,  they  as- 
sociate other  and  foreign  sources  of  knowl- 
edge with  it,  and  so  more  or  less  com- 
pletely obscure  the  true  meaning  of  the 
gospel.  Christian  theology,  I  maintain, 
should  be  nothing  else  than  Christian  the- 
ology. It  should  be  based,  not  chiefly 
merely,  but  solely,  upon  Christ.  And  the 
Bible,  Old  Testament  and  New,  so  far  as 
it  is  used  theologically  at  all  and  not  for 
religious  inspiration  merely,  should  be 
employed,  not  as  an  independent  source 
of  Christian  theology,  but  simply  as  an  aid 
to  the  better  understanding  of  Christ. 
And  the  same  is  true  of  the  religious  ex- 
perience of  ourselves  and  of  others  in  this 
and  other  ages. 

But  what  do  we   mean  when  we  say 


40   THEOLOGICAL   RECONSTRUCTION 

that  Jesus  Christ  is  the  only  true  basis  of 
Christian  theology  ?  Do  we  mean  the 
person  of  Christ,  the  incarnate  Son  of  God, 
and  so  find  our  constructive  principle  in 
the  incarnation,  as  many  have  done  ?  Do 
we  mean  the  historic  events  of  his  career 
—  birth,  death,  resurrection,  and  ascen- 
sion ?  Do  we  mean  more  generally  his 
life  and  work  ?  Do  we  mean  his  ethical 
and  religious  teaching,  or  his  total  revela- 
tion of  God  and  of  divine  truth  ?  To  speak 
of  Christ  as  the  basis  of  Christian  the- 
ology without  more  nearly  defining  what 
we  mean  is  to  speak  vaguely  and  to  little 
purpose.  Let  us  look  at  the  matter  some- 
what more  closely. 

Christian  theology  may  be  defined  as 
the  formulation  of  the  principles  of  the 
Christian  religion,  or,  to  phrase  it  some- 
what differently,  the  formulation  of  the 
controlling  principles  of  the  true  Christian 
life,  with  their  presuppositions  and  conse- 
quents. Christian  theology  has  frequently 
claimed  to  be  much  more  than  this.  It 
has  frequently  claimed  to  include  a  phi- 


THEOLOGICAL   RECONSTRUCTION   41 

losophy  of  God,  of  the  universe,  and  of 
man.  But  with  philosophy  as  such  Chris- 
tian theology  is  not  concerned.  It  is  a 
practical  discipline,  and  with  matters,  how- 
ever interesting  and  true,  which  do  not  in 
any  way  affect  life  it  has  nothing  to  do. 
Christian  theology  and  speculative  phi- 
losophy have  altogether  different  fields. 
If  it  be  said  that  it  is  merely  a  question 
of  names,  and  that  it  is  a  matter  of  indiffer- 
ence whether  we  use  the  term  "  theology  " 
in  the  narrower  or  in  the  broader  sense, 
I  reply  that  the  failure  to  observe  the 
proper  distinction  at  this  point  has  been 
largely  responsible  for  the  wide-spread  con- 
fusion between  essentials  and  non-essen- 
tials in  religion  and  for  the  common  ob- 
scuration of  the  cardinal  principles  of  the 
gospel.  It  is  time  that  every  one  recog- 
nized the  real  significance  of  Christian 
theology  and  distinguished  it  sharply  from 
the  philosophy  of  religion  in  general,  and 
still  more  sharply  from  metaphysics  and 
cosmology.  Christian  theology,  I  repeat, 
is   a   strictly  practical   discipline,  dealing 


42   THEOLOGICAL   RECONSTRUCTION 

with  the  principles  of  the  Christian  reHg- 
ion,  or  the  principles  that  underlie  and 
govern  the  Christian  life. 

But  when  this  is  once  recognized  the 
relation  of  Christ  to  Christian  theology 
becomes  perfectly  clear.  Christian  the- 
ology must  be  primarily  a  formulation  and 
exposition  of  the  principles  which  under- 
lay and  governed  his  life.  The  construc- 
tive principle,  then,  in  Christian  theology 
must  be  the  life-purpose  of  Jesus  Christ. 

But  a  serious  difficulty  suggests  itself 
Has  not  modern  biblical  criticism  thrown 
such  discredit  upon  our  sources  as  to  make 
it  impossible  for  us  to  stand  with  assur- 
ance upon  the  picture  of  Christ  contained 
in  the  four  gospels  ?  And  are  we  not 
consequently  building  upon  shifting  sand 
in  making  the  historic  figure  Jesus  the 
sole  basis,  or,  for  that  matter,  even  the 
chief  basis,  of  our  theology?  If  to  build 
our  theology  upon  Christ  means  to  make 
it  a  reproduction  of  all  his  teaching  upon 
all  the  matters  which  he  touched,  we  can 
hardly    do    otherwise    than     answer    this 


THEOLOGICAL   RECONSTRUCTION   43 

question  in  the  affirmative;  for  of  the 
genuineness  of  many  of  his  utterances  re- 
corded in  one  or  another  of  our  gospels 
we  cannot  be  altogether  sure.  But  to 
base  Christian  theology  upon  Christ  means 
nothing  of  this  kind.  It  means,  on  the 
contrary,  to  make  the  controlling  purpose 
of  his  life  the  controlling  principle  of  our 
theology.  And  that  purpose  we  know 
with  all-sufficient  clearness.  Modern  crit- 
icism has  served  only  to  make  plainer 
than  ever  before  Jesus'  life-purpose,  and 
there  need  be  no  fear  that  criticism  will 
ever  obscure  it.  It  alone  accounts  for 
Christianity,  and  Christianity  is  a  fact 
altogether  too  stubborn  to  be  got  rid  of 
Indeed,  the  more  mercilessly  the  sources 
are  criticised  the  more  clearly  does  the 
essential  Christian  fact  —  the  dominating 
purpose  of  Christ's  life  —  stand  out.  And 
that  purpose,  what  was  it  ?  It  was,  in  its 
simplest  terms,  to  impart  to  others  or  to 
induce  in  others  the  life  which  he  was  liv- 
ing,—  the  life  of  freedom  from  fear  and 
sin,  the  life  of  complete  victory  over  the 


44   THEOLOGICAL   RECONSTRUCTION 

world  through  faith  in  God  his  father  and 
through  devotion  to  his  will, —  and  so  to 
establish  on  earth  the  kinofdom  of  God. 
That  is  what  it  meant  to  Jesus  to  be  the 
Messiah :  to  impart  to  other  men,  his 
brethren,  the  most  precious  possession  of 
his  life, —  the  knowledge  of  and  faith  in  his 
father  God, —  and  so  to  bring  them  salva- 
tion. It  is  this  controlling  purpose  of 
Christ's  life,  and  the  revelation  of  God's  pur- 
pose and  of  our  privilege  and  duty  involved 
in  it,  that  are  alone  of  consequence  to  us. 
It  is  in  the  purpose  itself,  in  the  steadfast- 
ness with  which  he  gave  himself  to  its 
accomplishment,  and  in  the  knowledge  of 
God's  will  and  character  which  is  wrapped 
up  in  it,  that  we  recognize  the  divinity  of 
Christ  and  bow  before  him  as  our  Master 
and  our  Lord.  For  here  is  the  summit 
of  divine  purpose  and  of  human  attain- 
ment. If  God  be  not  here,  then  there  is 
no  God,  and  none  is  needed,  for  we  have 
all  we  need  here. 

Going  back  to  this  central  fact  of  Chris- 
tianity,—  going  back  to  Christ's  life-pur- 


THEOLOGICAL    RECONSTRUCTION   45 

pose, —  we  get  from  it  one  after  another 
of  the  great  truths  of  the  Christian  sys- 
tem.    We   get  from   it,  for  instance,   the 
Christian  view  of  God,  Christ's  father  and 
ours:   a   God  of  love,  whose   purpose  of 
love  for  his  children  is  realized  in  Christ's 
life  of  service ;   a  God  who  is  ever  giving 
himself  for  his  children,  even  as  Christ  gave 
himself  for  his  brethren.     We  get  also  the 
Christian  view  of  the  world :  that  it  be- 
longs to  God,  who  is  working  in  and  through 
it  to  establish  his  kingdom,  and  that  for 
the  child  of  God  it  is  a  field  for  service, 
for  conflict,  and  for  victory.     We  get  also 
the   Christian  view   of  men :   children   of 
God  and  brethren  one  of  another,  whose 
true  life  is  not  meat  and  drink,  health  and 
wealth,  but  to  do  the  will   of  God   their 
father  in  the  service  of  their  brethren.     We 
get  also  the  Christian  view  of  salvation : 
victory  over  the  world  and  sin  and  death, 
and  the  conscious  fulfilling  of  the  purposes 
of  God.     And  we  get  also  the  Christian 
view  of  Christ :  the  one  who  has  given  us 
his  faith  in   God  his  father,    and  so  has 


46   THEOLOGICAL    RECONSTRUCTION 

brought  God  to  us  and  eiven  us  the  vic- 
tory  over  the  world  and  sin  and  death 
which  was  his. 

All  this  our  Christ  principle  gives  us 
and  much  more.  But  much  also  which 
has  found  a  place  in  our  historic  theolo- 
gies it  does  not  give  us.  But  whatever  it 
does  not  has  no  rightful  place  in  Christian 
theology,  however  true  it  may  be.  The 
creation  of  the  world,  the  origin  of  man, 
the  historicity  of  Adam,  the  fall,  the  del- 
uge, Jonah,  the  nature  and  the  attributes 
of  the  Absolute  —  with  all  these  matters 
Christianity  has  absolutely  nothing  to  do, 
any  more  than  with  astronomy  or  geology 
or  mathematics. 

To  make  earnest  with  the  life-purpose 
of  Christ ;  to  make  it  absolutely  control- 
ling in  Christian  theology,  and  upon  it  as 
a  basis  to  reconstruct  our  traditional  sys- 
tems from  the  bottom  to  the  top ;  upon  it 
as  a  basis  to  formulate  a  genuine  Chris- 
tian theology,  not  for  this  age  alone  but 
for  ages  to  come  —  that  is  the  task  of 
Christian  theologians,  of  Christian  thinkers 


THEOLOGICAL   RECONSTRUCTION   47 

in  general,  whatever  their  place  or  calling. 
It  is  a  task  for  no  one  man  alone,  but  for 
many  working  together  with  the  one  com- 
mon purpose  and  the  one  common  spirit. 
For  Christian  theology,  if  it  is  genuinely 
Christian,  cannot  be  a  dividing,  it  must  be 
a  uniting  force. 

Let  us,  then,  brethren,  have  a  theology 
—  a  Christian  theology  for  the  twentieth 
and  for  all  the  coming  centuries.  Let 
us  have  a  Christian  theology  on  which 
we  can  unite ;  which  we  can  under- 
stand, and  make  others,  even  plain  men, 
understand  ;  which  we  can  preach  ;  which 
we  can  live  and  die  for ;  which  we  can 
conquer  the  world  with.  Let  us  know 
what  it  is  that  has  made  us  victors  and 
free  men,  and  let  us  tell  it  free  and  full 
and  clear.  Let  us  put  it,  if  we  will,  into 
creeds,  not  as  tests  of  orthodoxy  or  of 
heresy,  but  as  manifestoes,  as  declara- 
tions of  the  Christian  purpose.  I  believe, 
and  you  believe,  and  our  brethren  all 
about  us  believe,  and  therefore  we  live 
and  work  not  alone  but  together  for  the 


48  THEOLOGICAL   RECONSTRUCTION 

redemption  of  the  world.  I  believe  —  yes, 
I  am  sure  I  can  say  we  believe,  all  of  us — 
whatever  else  and  more  —  at  least  in  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  in  his  victory  for  him- 
self and  for  us  over  the  world  and  sin  and 
death;  and  we  believe  in  God,  his  father 
and  ours,  through  faith  in  whom  and 
through  devotion  to  whose  will  he  won 
his  victory,  as  we  too,  following  him,  may 
win  ours  ;  and  we  believe  in  the  kingdom 
of  God,  the  ever-growing  realization  of 
God's  purpose  In  the  ever-enlarging  com- 
munity of  those  who  through  faith  In  him 
are  overcoming  the  world  and  sin  and 
death ;  and  we  believe  in  the  Church  of 
Christ,  the  association  and  cooperation 
of  all  that  believe  in  Jesus  Christ  and  In 
his  father  God,  for  the  serving  and  the 
saving  of  their  brethren,  far  and  near, 
that  they  too  may  have  that  faith  in  God 
and  that  devotion  to  his  will  which  shall 
make  them  also  victors  over  the  world  and 
sin  and  death. 


Ill 


THE    RELIGIOUS    VALUE    OF 
THE    OLD    TESTAMENT 

AN  ADDRESS  TO  THE  GRADUATING  CLASS 
OF  UNION  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY,  GIVEN 
MAY     I3>   1902 

BY 

FRANCIS   BROWN 

DAVENPORT  PROFESSOR  OF  HEBREW  AND    THE  COGNATE   LANGUAGES 


THE  RELIGIOUS  VALUE  OF 
THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 

I  ASK  you  to  consider  some  aspects  of 
this  theme.  No  question  on  the  sub- 
ject arose  in  New  Testament  times.  The 
famiHar  verse,  ''  And  that  from  a  babe  thou 
hast  known  the  sacred  writings  which  are 
able  to  make  thee  wise  unto  salvation 
through  faith  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus " 
(2  Tim.  iii.  15),  is  sufficient  proof  of  this. 
It  is  noteworthy  that  in  the  full  freshness 
of  early  Christianity,  under  the  first  im- 
pression of  the  unique  personality  of  Jesus, 
such  worth  and  weight  should  have  been 
ascribed  to  the  Old  Testament.  The  old 
Jewish  Scriptures  were  not  incongruous 
with  Christ.  There  was  no  break  in  the 
line. 

The  case  is  somewhat  different  to-day. 
5» 


52  THE    RELIGIOUS   VALUE 

Everything  is  now  questioned,  and  with 
Christ  made  at  home  in  the  world,  and  his 
place  in  Christianity  emphasized,  it  is  im- 
possible that  critical  inquiry  should  not  be 
directed  toward  the  phenomenon  that  the 
early  Christian  writings  are  bound  in  a 
volume  more  than  three  quarters  of  which 
was  written  centuries  before  Christ  ap- 
peared. 

It  is  inevitable  that  the  question  should 
be  asked,  Are  the  Old  Testament  books 
really  Christian  Scriptures? 

The  question  has  found  two  extreme 
answers.  One  party  denies  that  they  are. 
The  Old  Testament  antedates  Christianity 
and  is  on  a  lower  plane.  The  spirit  of 
Christianity  is  lacking.  The  Old  Testa- 
ment may  represent  a  stage  of  the  human 
journey  on  the  way  to  Christ,  but  it  is  a 
stage  to  which  we  do  not  revert  when  we 
have  reached  Christ  himself  Christ  gives 
a  new  revelation  of  God,  so  original,  so 
profound,  so  penetrating,  that  it  is  practi- 
cally a  new  God  whom  he  reveals.  In 
any  case,  the  Old  Testament  is  so  elemen- 


OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT  53 

tary,  by  comparison,  and  looks  at  religion 
so  constantly  from  a  wrong  angle,  that 
for  religious  purposes  we  can  safely  neg- 
lect it. 

Another  party,  diminishing,  but  still 
large,  goes  to  the  opposite  extreme,  and 
affirms  not  only  that  the  Old  Testament 
books  are  Christian  Scriptures,  but  also 
that  they  are  fully  on  a  par,  for  the  Chris- 
tian religion,  with  the  books  of  the  New 
Testament.  This  proposition  is  defended 
historically  on  the  ground  of  needful  prep- 
aration for  Christ,  which  belongs  to  the 
Christian  system,  and  it  is  illustrated  prac- 
tically by  the  uncritical  use  of  selected  parts 
of  the  Old  Testament  to  maintain  doc- 
trines and  enforce  precepts  and  unfold 
experiences  belonging  to  Christianity.  In 
this  view  the  Old  Testament  is  treated 
as  a  flat  surface,  without  perspective  or 
shadinsf,  and  the  New  Testament  as  a 
mere  continuation  of  the  Old  Testament 
on  the  same  plane,  accidentally  separated 
from  it  by  book-divisions.  Most  of  those 
who  hold  this  view  are  good  people,  Bible- 


54  THE   RELIGIOUS  VALUE 

loving  and  sincere.  There  are  also  some 
scoffers,  who  identify  both  Testaments, 
and  gleefully  discredit  the  New  Testament 
from  what  they  find  to  object  to  in  the 
Old  Testament. 

It  is  probable  that  the  Old  Testament, 
and  religion  generally,  suffer  more  from 
the  latter  view  than  from  the  former.  It 
is  much  more  wide-spread.  The  facts  are 
plainly  against  it.  It  makes  a  claim  for 
the  Old  Testament  which  is  untenable, 
and  against  which  the  moral  sense  is  sure 
at  length  to  revolt.  Many  —  not  scoffers 
—  have  rejected  Christianity  because  of 
what  seems  the  dead  weio^ht  of  the  Old 

o 

Testament  attached  to  Christianity. 
Treated  thus  mechanically,  the  Old  Testa- 
ment has  grown  to  seem  to  many  thought- 
ful people  not  a  support  for  Christianity, 
but  a  handicap.  Christianity  without  any 
Old  Testament  at  all  is  simpler  and  clearer 
and  more  effective  than  Christianity  with 
an  Old  Testament  exaggerated  to  this 
degree. 

We  should  all  say,  of  course,  that  if  we 


OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT  55 

had  to  choose  between  the  New  Testament 
and  the  Old  Testament,  the  Old  Testament 
would  be  left  lying.  We  are  assured  that 
it  is  Jesus  Christ  who  has  transformed  the 
world.  We  know  whom  we  have  believed, 
and  it  is  he.  He  is  our  Friend,  our  Ex- 
ample, our  Redeemer,  our  Lord.  The 
God  whom  he  shows  is  the  God  whom 
we  adore  and  love,  the  kingdom  he  has 
set  up  is  the  kingdom  to  which  our  en- 
thusiasms belong.  Whatever  intimations 
of  him  the  Old  Testament  may  contain, 
they  are  shadowy,  whatever  truth  about 
God  it  teaches,  it  is  incomplete,  whatever 
announcements  for  man  it  makes,  they  are 
elementary,  in  comparison  with  the  rich 
abundance  of  spiritual  knowledge  and 
power  which  crowds  the  New  Testament 
and  makes  it  the  gospel  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ.  We  are  not  going  to  retreat  from 
the  glory  of  noonday  to  live  in  the  twilight 
of  the  cave.  If  we  could  have  only  one 
Testament,  we  should  not  hesitate  which 
to  choose. 

But  is  there  no  middle  crround  between 


56  THE   RELIGIOUS   VALUE 

the  two  extremes  ?  Must  we  either  aban- 
don our  Old  Testament,  and  lose  three 
fourths  of  our  Bible,  or  exalt  our  Old  Tes- 
tament to  a  place  beyond  its  right,  in 
defiance  of  truth  ?  We  have  to  ask,  with 
discrimination.  What  religious  value  has 
the  Old  Testament  for  Christians  ? 

The  question  is  not  as  to  its  historical 
value.  Only  fools  deny  that.  It  has 
value  for  national  history  —  very  great. 
It  is  our  main  source  for  Hebrew  history, 
and  our  chief  secondary  source  for  the  his- 
tory of  the  surrounding  peoples.  These 
documents  have,  of  course,  unique  value 
for  religious  history,  for  the  Hebrew  re- 
ligion, and  for  the  religion  of  Christians, 
which  sprang  from  Judaism  and  has  its 
roots  in  it.  They  have,  of  course,  also, 
importance  for  theology,  which,  if  studied 
soundly,  must  be  studied  historically ;  the 
Biblical  theology  of  the  Old  Testament  is 
one  historical  basis.  But  religious  value 
is  different. 

There  are  those,  I  know,  who  deny  this 
difference,    who    confuse    historical   value 


OF   THE    OLD   TESTAMENT  57 

with  religious  value.  These  persons  usu- 
ally mean,  by  historical  value,  literal  accu- 
racy ;  they  turn  the  Old  Testament  narra- 
tive into  a  phonographic  record  from  divine 
lips,  destroy  its  real  historical  character, 
and,  with  the  best  intentions,  destroy  also 
its  permanent  religious  value.  A  religion 
that  is  bound  up  with  the  literalness  of  the 
story  about  man  and  woman  and  fruit-tree 
and  serpent  and  flaming  sword  is  a  religion 
that  is  every  moment  in  peril,  and  for  large 
numbers  already  lost. 

Religious  value  may  have  historical  con- 
nections, and  in  this  case  it  does  have  them; 
but  it  lies,  essentially,  in  religious  ideas  and 
religious  power.  Thus  taken,  has  the  Old 
Testament  any  contribution  to  make  to 
the  present  religious  life  of  Christians  ? 

It  is  certain  that  religious  use  has  been 
made  of  it  in  the  Christian  Church  from 
the  beginning.  Prophecy  and  psalm, 
law-books  and  histories,  have  been  taken 
into  the  service  of  Christian  meditation, 
devotion,  and  conduct. 

But  we  cannot  answer  our  question  on 


58  THE    RELIGIOUS   VALUE 

any  basis  of  custom  and  tradition.  Some 
of  the  traditional  use  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment is  certainly  wrong.  Is  any  of  it 
right  and  profitable  ?  We  must  apply 
ourselves  independently  to  a  fresh  inquiry 
as  to  the  religious  authority  and  worth  of 
the  Old  Testament. 

It  would,  I  suppose,  be  found  true  that 
the  severities  of  the  Old  Testament,  both 
in  the  history  of  extermination  and  other 
violence,  and  in  the  lyrics  of  exultation 
over  foes,  have  fostered  the  austere  grim- 
ness  of  some  phases  of  Christianity,  as 
well  as  the  easy  human  tendency  to  iden- 
tify one's  own  enemies  with  those  of  God. 
All  competent  students  would  agree  that 
the  fanciful  interpretations,  by  which  alone 
large  parts  of  the  Old  Testament  could 
be  made  spiritually  fruitful,  have  corrupted 
the  simplicity  of  the  gospel.  Now  we  are 
learning  to  understand  things  more  natu- 
rally; we  refuse  to  allegorize,  because  that 
is  impertinent,  since  it  means  reading  our 
own  notions  into  the  Bible,  instead  of 
seeking  in  it  the  ideas  of  God  and  his  ser- 


OF    THE   OLD   TESTAMENT  59 

vants ;  we  see  that  the  prophets  were 
preachers,  whose  predictions  of  the  future 
were  born  of  moral  earnestness  and  spirit- 
ual insight,  and  were  conditioned,  in  the 
form  of  them,  by  the  environment  of  those 
who  uttered  them.  We  are  learnine  to 
apply  a  truer  ethical  standard  to  the  Old 
Testament  men,  and  not  to  think  cruelty 
right  because  God's  people  displayed  it, 
or  imprecation  Christian  because  pious 
singers  uttered  it.  And  all  this  at  least 
restricts  the  religious  use  which,  with  our 
present  light,  we  can  make  of  the  Old 
Testament. 

There  is  yet  another  difficulty  arising 
from  obscurities  of  interpretation.  There 
are  passages  of  the  Old  Testament  whose 
meaning  we  do  not  know.  The  attempts 
made  to  elucidate  them  in  our  current 
translations  are  guesswork,  due  to  the 
supposed  necessity  of  contriving  some 
English  equivalent  for  each  Hebrew  word 
and  phrase,  or  else  to  ignorance  of  the 
real  difficulty.  A  large  part  of  these 
difficulties  spring  from  corruptions  of  the 


6o  THE   RELIGIOUS   VALUE 

text  to  be  translated.  The  Old  Testa- 
ment languages  are  not  complicated,  but 
the  writings  have  had  a  rough  experience. 
Most  of  them  are  made  by  compilation  or 
accretion, —  older  documents  worked  to- 
gether or  added  to  one  another, —  most 
have  passed  through  the  hands  of  editors 
who  have  sometimes  become  commenta- 
tors. Their  additions  can  sometimes  be 
detected,  sometimes  only  suspected.  Mere 
copyists  have  done  their  work  imperfectly, 
and  the  mistake  of  one  has  been  made 
worse  by  another,  so  that  here  and  there 
the  uncertainty  grows  hopeless. 

This  doubt  as  to  the  basis  for  interpre- 
tation tends  to  make  it  difficult  for  those 
who  feel  it  to  use  the  Old  Testament  for 
religious  purposes,  and  leads  some,  in  de- 
spair, to  confine  themselves  to  the  surface 
of  it,  and  to  treat  the  Authorized  Version 
—  or,  if  they  are  particularly  conscientious, 
the  Revised  Version  —  as  the  inspired 
text  for  them  —  which  is  really  the  stulti- 
fying of  knowledge. 

Now,  in  view  of  these  facts,  I  desire 
briefly  to  present  considerations  in  behalf 


OF  THE   OLD   TESTAMENT  6i 

of  the  permanent  religious  value  of  the 
Old  Testament,  and,  if  I  can,  partly  to 
define  that  value. 

In  regard  to  the  defective  form  of  the 
Old  Testament  it  is  enough  for  the  pres- 
ent purpose  to  say  that  while  these  de- 
fects leave  uncertainties  of  detail,  they  do 
not  disturb  the  teaching  as  a  whole,  nor 
damage  the  Old  Testament  as  a  channel 
of  worship.  Some  defects  can  be  removed, 
and  when  they  are  we  can  use  the  text 
with  renewed  confidence  at  such  points. 
But  even  those  defects  which  cannot  now 
be  removed,  and  probably  never  will  be,  as 
long  as  we  need  books  at  all,  do  not  so 
affect  the  worth  of  the  Old  Testament 
books  as  to  prevent  their  intelligent  use 
for  the  highest  religious  purposes.  The 
text  as  it  is  will  serve  its  heavenly  ends. 

What,  then,  of  the  contents  ?  Here 
the  question  at  once  arises  as  to  the  point 
of  view  from  which  we  are  to  consider 
them.  From  what  point  of  view  has  the 
judgment  already  expressed  been  formed  ? 
What  point  of  view  is  in  fact  the  true  one? 

What  is  the  test  of  the  Old  Testament 


62  THE   RELIGIOUS   VALUE 

as  a  religious  authority?  It  can  surely 
be  no  other  than  the  universal  Christian 
test,  of  which  many  of  us  have  lately  been 
emphatically  reminded.^  If  Jesus  Christ  is 
the  supreme  revelation  of  God,  so  that  all 
doctrines,  opinions,  rules,  and  practices 
which  claim  to  be  of  God  must  conform  to 
his  teachings,  life,  and  spirit  in  order  to  es- 
tablish the  claim,  then  the  teachings,  life, 
and  spirit  of  Jesus  Christ  are  the  only 
touchstone  by  which  we  can  recognize  the 
religious  value  of  the  Old  Testament, 
among  the  rest.  Whatever  accords  with 
the  teachings,  purpose,  and  spirit  of  Jesus 
Christ  has  religious  value  for  us.  What- 
ever does  not  accord  with  these  lacks  re- 
ligious value  for  us,  whether  it  stands  in 
the  Old  Testament  or  in  day  before  yes- 
terday's sermon. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  to  say  that 
a  thing  has  no  religious  value  for  us  is  not 
the  same  with  saying  that  it  never  had 
religious  value  at  all.  Many  forms  of 
religion    have    real    value   now   for   those 

*  See  Address  II. 


OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT  6^ 

who  adhere  to  them,  while  to  us  they  have 
none.  If  we  should  find,  therefore,  that 
there  are  elements  in  the  Old  Testament 
religion  which  are  of  no  present  religious 
value  to  us,  it  would  not  follow  that  they 
had  no  importance  in  the  time  of  them, 
and  were  not  of  divine  origin.  Partial 
truth,  involving  error  by  its  very  partiality, 
may  have  been  the  best  possible  in  the 
times  of  ignorance.  Human  failure  to 
apprehend  the  truth  that  was  offered  may 
reflect  itself  in  the  record,  while  along 
with  this  the  religious  life  may  have  been 
strong  and  sound. 

It  is  very  important,  also,  to  remember 
the  breadth  of  Christ's  spirit.  Christ  is 
not  narrow  or  exclusive,  but  comprehen- 
sive. No  small  Christ  can  be  the  standard 
by  which  the  Old  Testament's  yield  in  re- 
ligion shall  be  judged.  There  is  a  popu- 
lar criticism  of  the  Old  Testament  which 
assumes  that  amiability  is  the  sole  mark 
of  Christ,  and  that  the  note  of  sternness 
heard  in  the  Old  Testament  is  discordant 
with  the  Christian  spirit.     This   criticism 


64  THE   RELIGIOUS   VALUE 

forgets  the  dark  realities  of  sin  with  which 
Jesus  wrestled,  and  the  awful  unsparing- 
ness  of  rejected  love.  We  must,  in  some 
degree,  get  the  measure  of  Jesus  before  we 
can  use  Jesus  as  a  measure  of  the  Old 
Testament  and  its  religion.  Failure  here 
leads  to  one  of  two  extremes :  to  the  re- 
jection of  strong  Old  Testament  teaching, 
because  Jesus  is  made  so  narrow  as  to 
leave  no  room  for  it,  or  to  the  imposing 
of  a  mystic  sense  upon  passages  whose 
natural  sense  does  not  accord  with  the  in- 
terpreter's small  conception  of  Jesus.  The 
God  of  the  Old  Testament  was  severe 
toward  sin,  but  he  was  not  therefore  un- 
Christlike,  for  Christ  could  be  severe.  Or, 
to  take  a  widely  different  illustration,  if 
the  Song  of  Songs  is  to  be  saved  to  the 
canon  of  Scripture  —  if,  that  is  to  say,  it  is 
to  appear  conformable  to  the  standard  of 
Jesus  Christ  —  it  will  be,  not  by  revamping 
the  traditional  view  which  finds  in  it  an 
allegory  of  Christ  and  the  Church,  but  by 
expanding  the  thought  of  Christ  till  it  con- 
secrates all  love,  human  as  well  as  divine. 


OF   THE    OLD   TESTAMENT  65 

The  question  might  seem  a  simple  one, 
where  our  standard  is  deposited —  how  we 
may  learn  the  teachings  and  spirit  of  Jesus 
Christ,  so  as  to  apply  them  to  the  Old 
Testament.  Our  primary  source  of  knowl- 
edge about  Christ  is,  of  course,  the  New 
Testament.  There  his  words  are  re- 
corded ;  there  his  life  is  sketched  by  his 
friends ;  there  his  deeds  are  described, 
and  the  impression  made  by  him  reflected  ; 
there  his  disciples  have  set  down  his  in- 
struction, and  the  development  and  out- 
come of  that  instruction,  under  the  forms 
in  which  they  were  able  to  conceive  them. 
Christ's  influence  must  in  any  case  have 
been  powerful  and  far-reaching ;  but  the 
record  has  done  much  to  conserve  it.  No 
one  here  will  pretend  that  the  modern 
Church  reflects  the  spirit  of  Christ  per- 
fectly, yet  if  no  New  Testament  had  been 
written,  his  image  would  surely  have  been 
distorted  far  more  than  it  actually  has 
been,  even  if  it  had  not  already  be- 
come shadowy.  Surely,  then,  it  is  in 
the  New  Testament  that  we  must  find  the 


66  THE   RELIGIOUS   VALUE 

standard  by  which  we  are  to  judge  the 
Old. 

But  there  are  difficulties.  It  is  evident 
that  Jesus  and  his  disciples  had  no  detailed 
purpose  of  instructing  men  how  they 
should  view  the  Old  Testament  —  that  this 
did  not  dominate  their  minds.  For  what 
they  say  about  it  is  fragmentary  and  in- 
complete. We  get  only  hints  and  illus- 
trations of  their  attitude  toward  it.  There 
are  books  from  which  they  do  not  cite, 
ranges  of  the  Old  Testament  which  do  not 
seem  to  have  been  before  their  minds. 

Nor  is  their  attitude  uniform  toward 
those  parts  of  it  with  which  they  deal. 
All  are  treated  with  respect,  and  most 
with  reverence,  but  some  with  present  ap- 
proval and  acquiescence,  while  others  are 
regarded  as  temporary  and  inferior.  We 
need  only  be  reminded  of  the  law  of  divorce, 
of  the  oath,  and  of  retaliation,  in  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  (Matt.  v.  31-42). 
If  they  had  covered  the  whole  field,  how 
far  would  such  criticisms  have  extended  ? 
The  New  Testament  gives  us  no  answer 
to  this  inquiry. 


OF  THE   OLD   TESTAMENT  67 

Nor,  finally,  are  we  sure  of  the  accuracy 
of  all  the  record  we  have. 

We  must  take  another  factor  into  the 
account,  and,  to  this  end,  gain  another 
point  of  view.  Why  should  we  expect 
the  New  Testament  to  give  us  full  instruc- 
tion about  the  Old  ?  Is  the  New  Testa- 
ment then  a  new  law-book  ?  Is  that  the 
essence  of  the  gospel,  that  we  have  a  new 
book  of  rules  —  one  code  substituted  for 
another?  The  value  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment lies  in  the  power  of  a  new  life  which 
it  brings  to  us.  It  introduces  us  to  Jesus 
Christ,  in  whom  the  new  life  has  its  per- 
ennial seat,  and  when  the  contact  is  made, 
the  new  life  streams  into  us  from  him,  and 
there  is  no  book  between.  The  book  and 
its  teachings  remain  the  living  portrait  of 
him  and  the  illustration  of  the  life  he  de- 
sires for  us  ;  we  are  not  strong  enough  to  do 
without  it,  but  we  must  apply  its  princi- 
ples in  solving  for  ourselves  the  problems 
of  truth  and  duty.  The  new  life  dwelling 
in  us  is  the  spirit  of  Christ,  and  it  is  under 
the  control  of  that  spirit  that  we  must, 
in  the  last  resort,  take  up  our  own  posi- 


68  THE   RELIGIOUS   VALUE 

tion  with  reference  to  the  rehgious  value 
of  the  Old  Testament.  We  must  do  it  in 
humility,  of  course.  We  must  do  it  with 
the  guidance  of  the  concrete  examples 
which  Jesus  left  behind.  We  must  do  it 
with  consideration  for  the  views  of  others. 
We  must  do  it  with  due  regard  for  God's 
voice  in  the  souls  of  all  our  brotherhood. 
But  do  it  we  must  if  we  are  to  have  it 
done  at  all.  The  test  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, for  purposes  of  religion,  must  be 
the  teachings,  life,  and  spirit  of  Jesus 
Christ  in  the  New  Testament,  and  also, 
and  essentially,  in  the  minds  and  hearts  of 
those  who  believe  in  him. 

It  thus  becomes  immaterial  whether  or 
not  the  New  Testament  answers  explicitly 
all  our  questions  about  the  religious  value 
of  the  Old.  As  far  as  we  possess  the 
spirit  of  Christ,  revealed  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament and  regnant  in  our  souls,  so  far  we 
are  qualified  to  estimate  that  religious 
value  for  ourselves.  We  possess  the 
spirit  of  Christ  imperfectly,  no  doubt. 
Therefore  we  may  err  in  our  judgment  of 


OF   THE    OLD   TESTAMENT  69 

that  of  which  the  spirit  of  Christ  is  the 
test.  This  is  our  present  hmitation.  But 
in  no  other  way  can  we  go  so  far  toward 
the  full  truth.  Nothing  can  be  substi- 
tuted for  our  best  apprehension  of  the 
spirit  of  Christ  in  deciding  what  religious 
treasure  the  Old  Testament  has  for  us. 

In  the  field  of  doctrine  we  may  illustrate 
the  matter  by  the  character  of  God  as 
shown  in  the  Old  Testament.  When  we 
sum  up  the  impressions  and  teachings 
about  the  God  of  the  ancient  Hebrews,  the 
general  result  is  very  definite.  We  find  a 
personal  Being,  of  great  majesty,  dignity, 
and  power,  the  Creator  and  Ruler  of  men  ; 
a  Being  of  holiness  and  transcendence ; 
a  Being  of  righteousness,  who  promotes 
righteousness  in  others  and  punishes  every 
breach  of  it,  whose  government  is  a  moral 
government,  and  from  whose  decisions 
there  is  no  appeal ;  a  Being  of  kindness, 
tenderness,  and  helpfulness,  with  gracious 
care  for  those  who  confide  in  him,  whose 
plans  are  at  length  to  be  worked  out  and 
his  desires  realized  in  the  unity  of  men 


70  THE   RELIGIOUS  VALUE 

under  his  benevolent  sway,  amid  the  ex- 
hibition of  the  divine  glories  of  righteous- 
ness and  universal  peace.  With  each 
stroke  of  this  drawing  the  New  Testa- 
ment picture  is  in  accord.  To  this  extent 
the  spirit  and  teaching  of  Jesus  Christ  in- 
dorse the  older  revelation. 

But  when  we  study  certain  portions  of 
the  Old  Testament  by  themselves,  the  im- 
pression is  somewhat  different.  We  find 
that,  over  a  large  area  of  the  history,  God 
appears  to  care  for  one  small  people  alone. 
The  region  of  his  power  is  simply  the  re- 
gion of  that  people's  communal  and  na- 
tional life.  Elsewhere  other  gods  are 
ruling.  Moreover,  for  a  time,  the  function 
of  Yahweh  is  not  so  much  to  secure  his 
people's  righteousness  as  to  give  them 
success  in  war  and  prosperity  in  times  of 
peace.  Both  the  universal  and  the  ethi- 
cal are  long  in  the  background.  Further, 
the  beginnings  of  his  worship  in  Israel,  as 
far  as  they  are  not  obscure,  are  very  rudi- 
mentary. Polytheism  lies  back  of  mono- 
theism.    From  our  standpoint  we  feel  the 


OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT  71 

imperfection  of  the  Old  Testament  views. 
We  explain  them  by  the  principle  of  de- 
velopment ;  the  Old  Testament  view  of 
God  is  passing  from  the  lower  to  the 
higher  —  from  the  conceptions  common  to 
men  to  the  unique  conception  of  the  inimi- 
table King  of  kings.  This  means  that 
when  we  apply  our  test  at  certain  separate 
points  the  Old  Testament  doctrine  of  God 
is  found  wanting. 

This  appears  more  positively  in  such  a 
story  as  that  of  the  sacrifice  of  Isaac.  It 
is  a  fine  story  —  the  supreme  test  of  obe- 
dience. But  what  conception  of  God 
must  those  have  held  who  could  believe 
that  he  exacted  of  his  most  faithful  servant 
an  act  of  obedience  like  this?  The  defect 
appears  also  in  the  utterances  of  vengeance, 
unrelieved  and  exultant,  in  which  some 
phrases  in  the  Psalms  seem  to  express 
what  was  felt  to  be  the  mind  of  Jehovah 
toward  the  foes  of  his  people.  They  do 
not  set  forth  the  God  in  whom  we  have 
learned  to  believe.  Our  God  can  be  stern, 
and  often  must  be  stern,  but  he  is  not  vin- 


72  THE   RELIGIOUS   VALUE 

dictive.  The  Old  Testament  thought  of 
God  has  not  fully  emerged  from  darkness 
into  the  lio^ht. 

The  study  of  the  old  Hebrew  God  is 
not  made  worthless  by  these  facts.  It 
becomes  more  and  more  a  matter  of  in- 
tense interest.  For  it  is  a  development 
not  of  God  with  which  that  study  is  con- 
cerned, but  of  the  thought  of  God,  the 
knowledge  of  God.  The  Christian  God 
is  the  eternal  God.  The  God  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  whom  we  learn  to  know  in 
him,  was  not  a  new  God  when  Jesus 
came.  The  Old  Testament  men  saw  him, 
but  they  saw  him  dimly.  The  history  of 
all  true  religion  has  been  a  history  of  the 
attempts  of  men  to  lay  hold  of  the  Chris- 
tian God. 

To  exhibit  the  subject  fully  one  should 
set  forth  the  Christian  God  according  to 
our  present  apprehension  of  him  —  in  its 
turn  doubtless  very  imperfect.  This  is 
now  impossible,  and  it  is  the  less  needful 
because  it  has  been  done  in  this  place, 
with    great    competence    and    eloquence, 


OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT  73 

but  a  few  months  ago.*  Yet  this  may  be 
said,  just  now,  that  the  total  impression 
conveyed  by  the  Old  Testament  doctrine 
of  God,  accurate  as  its  many  features  must 
be  recognized  to  be,  is  a  very  different 
thing  from  the  God  whose  name  we  learn 
when  we  go  to  school  to  Christ.  The 
proportions  are  different.  The  dominant 
force  is  not  clearly  the  same.  To  find  the 
Father  who  reveals  himself  in  compelling 
love,  through  Jesus  Christ,  for  the  redemp- 
tion of  the  whole  world,  we  must  come  out 
of  the  Old  Testament,  and  learn  the  les- 
son, still  novel  and  strange  to  many,  of 
living  unreservedly  in  the  New. 

A  few  words  on  the  authority  of  the  Old 
Testament  precepts  for  us.  An  old  dis- 
tinction was  drawn  between  the  ceremo- 
nial and  the  moral  law.  This  has  con- 
venience still.  It  is  essentially  imperfect 
because  the  two  are  so  interwoven  that  it 
is  hard  for  us  to  distinguish  them,  and  be- 
cause the  entire  priestly  conception  of  duty 
in    the    Old    Testament    erases   the   dis- 

*  See  Address  I. 


74  THE    RELIGIOUS   VALUE 

tinction  altogether.  But  when  it  is  said 
that  the  ceremonial  law  is  not  of  authority 
for  us,  we  understand  it  fairly  well,  and  it 
blots  out  the  element  of  command  from 
large  sections  of  Ezekiel  and  the  later 
prophets,  the  Pentateuch,  Chronicles,  and 
Ezra.  With  the  moral  law  the  case  is  felt 
to  be  different.  The  moral  law  is  grounded 
in  the  character  of  God,  and  has  therefore 
an  element  of  permanence.  This  position 
is  unquestionable ;  but  it  does  not  follow 
that  all  the  Old  Testament  precepts  in  the 
domain  of  morals  have  authority  for  us. 
Some  of  them  are  adapted  to  men  at  a 
low  stage.  Some  are  distinctly  corrected 
or  repudiated  in  the  New,  such  as  the  law 
of  divorce  and  the  law  of  the  oath.  Some 
are  enlarged  and  transformed,  such  as  the 
law  aeainst  murder.  And  in  recfard  to 
them  all,  as  far  as  they  are  felt  to  have 
present  force,  an  analysis  would  probably 
show  that  the  force  they  have  is  the  force 
of  inward  moral  conviction,  with  which 
they  are  in  accord,  rather  than  the  force 


OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT  75 

of  a  statute  imposed  by  external  authority, 
however  august. 

This  leads  to  another  point.  That  the 
law  was  not  a  mere  matter  of  precept  for 
outward  observance  was  understood  by 
the  best  Hebrews  before  the  prophets 
had  finished  their  work.  ''  I  will  put  my 
law  in  their  inward  parts,  and  in  their 
heart  will  I  write  it,"  was  the  word 
through  Jeremiah  (xxxi.  ^^^f  and  the 
psalmist  prayed,  "  Create  in  me  a  clean 
heart,  O  God ;  and  renew  a  right  spirit 
within  me  "  (Ps.  li.  10).  The  right  life  had 
its  roots  within.  The  whole  long  conflict 
between  the  prophets  and  the  ceremonial- 
ists,  in  which  the  prophets  showed  their 
abhorrence  of  a  sacrificial  system  that 
tolerated  wicked  hearts  and  lives,  points 
to  the  same  conviction. 

But  the  great,  moulding  personalities 
of  the  New  Testament,  Jesus,  Paul,  and 
John,  lay  such  stress  upon  this  as  to 
give  it  a  new  aspect.  With  them  the 
authority  that  controls  moral  life  is  not 


76  THE   RELIGIOUS   VALUE 

at  all  the  authority  of  a  statute ;  it  is 
solely  the  authority  of  an  inward  principle, 
a  principle  of  loyalty  and  a  principle  of 
love.  The  normal  Christian  life,  as  they 
represent  it,  is  not  lived  by  precept,  but 
by  the  working  out  of  an  enlightenment 
of  the  soul,  energized  by  the  Holy  Spirit. 
The  New  Testament,  we  must  repeat,  is 
not  the  second  edition  of  a  law-book.  The 
more  experienced  and  advanced  may,  of 
course,  instruct  the  more  ignorant,  and 
we  find  many  directions  what  to  do  in  the 
New  Testament,  and  very  precious  they 
are,  especially  those  that  came  from  Jesus 
himself.  But  there  is  no  force  in  precepts 
to  get  themselves  obeyed.  These  were 
not  the  things  that  Jesus  depended  on  for 
the  transformation  of  life  and  the  renewal 
of  the  world.  He  said  it  was  better  that  he 
should  go  away,  that  the  Comforter  —  the 
indwelling  and  controlling  Spirit  —  might 
come.  The  normal  Christian  experience 
is  not  after  the  law  of  a  carnal  command- 
ment, but  after  the  power  of  an  endless 
life. 


OF  THE   OLD   TESTAMENT  77 

If  the  average  life  of  Christian  men 
were  normal,  one  need  say  no  more.  In 
fact,  we  cannot  dismiss  precepts  quite 
so  summarily.  True,  the  New  Testament 
religion,  fundamentally  and  normally,  is 
not  a  religion  of  precepts.  It  is  a  religion 
of  spiritual  life.  The  region  of  spiritual 
life,  which  shows  itself,  spontaneously,  in 
the  loving  service  of  God  and  man,  is  far 
above  all  systems  that  aim  at  righteousness- 
by  precept.  But  the  best  men  do  not  always 
live  in  this  higher  region,  and  there  are 
many  men  who  have  never  breathed  its 
air  at  all.  Therefore  the  precept  is  not 
yet  superfluous.  Commands  were  given 
to  the  Hebrews  long  ago,  when  their  re- 
ligious development  was  imperfect.  Some 
people  now  are  in  a  stage  of  development 
no  whit  further  advanced.  It  is  something 
to  hold  men  by  a  command,  if  that  is  the 
only  way  in  which  they  can  be  held.  Love 
is  better  than  grudging  obedience  ;  but 
obedience,  however  grudging,  is  better 
than  wild  license.  Good  men  sometimes 
lose  the  inward  orlow  and  fire,  and  have  to 


78  THE   RELIGIOUS   VALUE 

fall  back  on   the  steady  support  of  what 
they  ought  to  do. 

So  Wordsworth  testifies,  in  the  ''  Ode  to 
Duty  " : 

There  are  who  ask  not  if  thine  eye 
Be  on  them  ;  who,  in  love  and  truth, 
Where  no  misgiving  is,  rely 
Upon  the  genial  sense  of  youth. 
Glad  hearts !  without  reproach  or  blot. 
Who  do  thy  work,  and  know  it  not ; 
Long  may  the  kindly  impulse  last, 
But  thou,  if  they  should  totter,  teach 
them  to  stand  fast ! 

Serene  will  be  our  days  and  bright, 
And  happy  will  our  nature  be, 
When  love  is  an  unerring  light, 
And  joy  its  own  security. 
And  they  a  blissful  course  may  hold, 
Even  now,  who,  not  unwisely  bold, 
Live  in  the  spirit  of  this  creed  ; 
Yet  find  that  other  strength,  according 
to  their  need. 

We  are  called  to  liberty,  but  if  we  ever 
are   tempted   to   misuse   our  liberty,  it   is 


OF  THE   OLD   TESTAMENT  79 

good  to  feel  beneath  us  the  rock  of  the 
eternal  righteousness. 

But  the  Christian  ideal  is  that  of  life  in 
the  Spirit.  "  If  ye  died  with  Christ  from 
the  rudiments  of  the  world,  why,  as 
though  living  in  the  world,  do  ye  subject 
yourselves  to  ordinances.  Handle  not, 
nor  taste,  nor  touch  ?  .  .  .  For  ye  died, 
and  your  life  is  hid  with  Christ  in  God  " 
(Col.  ii.  20,  21  ;   iii.  3). 

I  turn  to  consider  briefly  the  Old  Tes- 
tament as  a  book  of  religions  experie^tce. 
Whatever  may  be  the  limitations  of  the 
Old  Testament,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the 
men  out  of  whose  life  it  sprang  had  found 
God  and  held  communion  with  him.  The 
Being  whom  they  reached  in  their  way  was 
the  same  that  we  reach  in  our  way,  though 
they  could  not  know  him  so  well  as  we 
are  privileged  to  do.  Their  apprehension 
of  him  was  so  vivid,  their  trust  in  him  was 
so  complete,  their  gifts  of  expression  were 
so  unusual,  their  wealth  of  illustration  so 
inexhaustible,  that  they  produced  a  litera- 
ture  of  spiritual    aspiration  and  worship 


So  THE    RELIGIOUS   VALUE 

without  a  parallel.  It  is  a  heritage  into 
which  we  have  entered.  Many  of  these 
religious  lyrics  are  local  and  temporary  in 
their  coloring.  Some  are  marred  by  sen- 
timents ill  according  with  the  Christian 
principle  of  love.  But  these  things  have 
not  checked,  and  are  not  likely  to  check, 
the  Christian  Church  in  its  use  of  the 
Psalms  and  all  the  worshipful  parts  of  the 
Old  Testament  as  a  means  of  devotion. 
Enveloping  all  defects,  swallowing  them 
up  and  putting  them  out  of  sight,  is  the 
great  sweep  of  religious  fervor,  the  inten- 
sity of  spiritual  longing  and  joy,  which  is 
borne  onward  in  them  to  all  the  genera- 
tions. I  take  it  that  what  holds  the  Old 
Testament  to  the  New,  more  than  any- 
thing else,  is  the  sense  of  oneness  in  re- 
ligious experience  by  which  men  trained 
in  Christ's  school  respond  to  the  Hebrew 
utterances  of  faith,  and,  with  no  feeling  of 
a  gulf  to  be  bridged,  or  the  need  of  a  glass 
to  set  right  the  vision,  adopt  these  utter- 
ances as  their  own.  When  they  do,  no 
doubt,  they  cannot   forget   that  they   are 


OF  THE   OLD   TESTAMENT  8i 

Christians.  When  they  go  back  to  the  Old 
Testament  for  the  speech  of  their  devo- 
tion they  do  not  leave  Christ  behind  them. 
That  would  be  preposterous.  The  God 
whom  we  worship  in  the  Psalms  and  the 
other  Hebrew  literature  of  religious  ex- 
perience is  the  God  revealed  in  Jesus 
Christ.  We  worship  the  God  we  know, 
and  not  the  God  Asaph  or  Heman  knew. 
For  religious  fervor  speaks  the  same 
language  always. 

When  we  interpret  their  words  to  our 
minds  we  must  do  it  from  their  position. 
The  New  Testament  was  not  before  their 
eyes,  nor  Jesus  Christ  before  their 
thought.  But  when  we  adopt  their  lan- 
guage in  our  devotion,  we  expand  it  to 
the  fulness  of  our  richer  knowledge. 
What  does  not  befit  our  knowledge  we 
can  no  longer  use.  The  further  ranges  of 
our  knowledge  demand  other  expression. 
But  within  its  own  wide  limits  the  Old 
Testament  service  of  Christian  devotion 
remains  and  will  remain. 

We  worship  in   the   Psalms,  we  adore 


82  THE   RELIGIOUS   VALUE 

with  the  prophets.  Those  men  knew  God 
indeed.  They  clung  to  him  with  their 
souls.  We  may  put  more  of  knowledge 
into  our  worship,  but  not  more  of  reality. 
As  we  worship  we  feel  ourselves  most  akin 
to  them,  we  draw  near  to  God  with  them, 
we  rejoice  in  the  inheritance  we  have  from 
them,  and  we  rejoice,  in  their  behalf  as 
well  as  ours,  in  that  larger  inheritance,  the 
fulfilment  of  their  noblest  hopes,  into  which, 
by  the  grace  of  God,  they  have  entered 
long  ago,  and  for  which  we  still  hope  and 
pray. 

These  remarks  illustrate  the  Christian 
view  of  the  Old  Testament  as  a  book  of 
religion.  If  much  space  has  been  given 
to  the  need  of  a  discriminatinof  use  of  it,  it 
is  because  this  need  is  real,  and  often 
overlooked  by  the  zealous,  and  because  to 
overlook  it  sets  hindrances  in  the  way  of 
honest  faith  in  God.  If  emphasis  has 
been  laid  upon  the  rule  which  the  dis- 
criminating judgment  must  apply,  it  is  be- 
cause only  those  who  perceive  in  Jesus 
the  standard  of  all  religion  are  delivered 


OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT  8$ 

from  the  dangers  of  shallowness  and  the 
isolation  of  subjective  mistakes  ;  and  only 
they  have  entered  with  clear  mind  into 
the  secret  of  Christianity. 

The  religious  value  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment to  Christian  people  may  be  summed 
up,  then,  in  a  few  sentences.  Christianity 
presupposes  the  Old  Testament.  Jesus 
found  spiritual  life  in  it.  He  led  his  fol- 
lowers, from  the  outset,  into  a  richer  use 
of  it,  so  that  those  who  walked  the  way 
after  him  were  conscious  of  the  long  vista 
behind  —  the  straight  track  by  which  re- 
ligious truth  and  power  had  come.  He 
points  us  backward,  too,  into  the  same 
great  country  of  God's  ancient  revelation. 
There  is  true  religion  there,  with  the  value 
of  originality,  the  value  of  large  setting  in 
the  history  of  men,  the  value  of  abundant 
detail,  the  value  of  mighty  experiences, 
the  value  of  divine  knowledge  embodied 
in  literature,  the  value  of  strong  impera- 
tives, the  value  of  the  penitent's  confes- 
sion, the  value  of  the  seer's  vision. 

With    this    mighty    background    Jesus 


^ 


84  THE    RELIGIOUS   VALUE 

truly  harmonizes,  but  from  it,  also,  he  stands 
out  distinct  and  commanding.  The  back- 
ground sets  him  off,  but  itself  is  incom- 
plete without  him.  Those  human  hands 
to  which  God  intrusted  the  painting  of 
it  had  not  the  central,  perfect  figure  before 
them,  that  they  might  bring  every  detail 
into  full  accord  with  him.  God  was  grad- 
ually working  out  his  design  —  not  forc- 
ing it  upon  men,  but  letting  it  dawn  upon 
them  by  degrees.  Of  course,  then,  there 
were  imperfections.  There  were  great 
facts  but  partly  seen,  great  obligations  but 
partly  understood,  the  life  of  precept  rec- 
ognized, and  the  life  of  free  obedience  in 
love  feebly  grasped.  We  have  to  supple- 
ment the  defects  of  the  Old  Revelation  by 
the  abundance  of  the  Newer,  and  it  is 
most  of  all  in  the  spirit  of  contrition,  of 
submission,  of  adoration,  that  with  Jesus  as 
our  companion  we  enter  freely  into  the 
life  of  the  ancient  worshipper. 

I  have  said  almost  nothing  about  proph- 
ecy —  too  great  a  subject  for  a  paragraph. 
Here,  too,  there  is  enduring  value, —  to  be 


OF  THE   OLD   TESTAMENT  85 

recognized  with  discrimination, —  a  value 
which  resides  not  so  much  in  the  detailed 
fulfilment  of  specific  predictions  as  in  the 
everlasting  power  of  the  divine  principles 
of  life  which  prophecy  reiterates,  and  by 
which  alone  the  kingdom  of  God  can 
come. 

The  Old  Testament,  then,  is  not  the 
primary  source  of  the  Christian  religion. 
But  it  is  the  embodiment  of  a  genuine  re- 
ligion, which,  as  far  as  its  elements  have 
permanent  vitality,  Christianity  has  taken 
up  into  itself.  The  promise  of  universality 
made  to  the  Old  Testament  religion  proves 
to  be  conditioned  on  its  merging  into 
that  which  was  destined  to  spring  from  it, 
to  supersede  it,  to  envelop  it,  to  discard 
the  perishable  in  it,  and  to  give  new 
glory  to  that  in  it  which  could  endure.  The 
revelation  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  that  alone, 
determines  what  is  perishable  and  what 
endures.  That  which  can  endure  in  the 
presence  of  Jesus  Christ  is  full  of  instruc- 
tion and  stimulus  and  spiritual  devotion 
through   all  the  ages,  until   every  partial 


S6  THE  RELIGIOUS  VALUE 

revelation  is  swallowed  up  in  the  abundant 
light  of  the  glory  of  God,  in  Jesus  Christ 
our   Lord. 

Gentlemen  of  the  Graduating  Class :  I 
have  dared  to  lead  your  thoughts  this 
way  to-night, — your  last  night  with  us, — 
because  in  this  Book  is  our  message,  and 
because  the  New  Testament  fills  only  a 
quarter  of  it,  and  it  is  of  practical  conse- 
quence to  know  what  attitude  we  ought  to 
take  and  teach  others  to  take  toward  the 
earlier  and  larger  part.  I  have  not  de- 
sired to  raise  suspicions  about  it,  but  to 
allay  them,  if  you  have  any.  I  have  not 
sought  to  limit  your  use  of  it,  but  to  help 
you  to  revel  in  it  wnth  free  minds  and 
clear  minds,  that  your  souls  may  be  more 
and  more  enriched  by  it,  and  your  minis- 
try clothed  with  power.  And  may  the 
Spirit  of  Christ  reveal  to  you,  increas- 
ingly, its  hidden  beauties,  and  enable 
you  to  drink  abundantly  of  its  perennial 
springs. 

For   the   rest,   a   few  sentences  cannot 


OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT  87 

utter  the  feelings  of  this  moment.  You 
regret,  as  I  do,  that  the  last  word  of  cheer 
and  farewell  cannot  be  spoken  to  you  by 
one  in  whom  you  have  been  accustomed 
to  confide  through  all  your  course  here, 
and  whose  bodily  presence  is  not  with  us, 
though  his  thoughts  certainly  have  been 
about  us  to-day.  But  this  I  can  say,  for 
myself  and  for  my  colleagues :  We  are 
very  sorry  to  have  you  go  ;  but  we  should 
be  more  sorry  still  if  you  were  not  going. 
For  you  are  going  out  to  service,  and  ser- 
vice is  the  greatest  thing  on  earth — service 
inspired  by  love  and  dominated  by  loy- 
alty. This  is  the  lesson  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament ;  this  is  the  lesson  of  the  Old 
Testament  also.  This  finds  its  response  in 
the  heart  of  the  Christian  man  who  knows 
that  he  is  not  his  own,  for  he  is  bought 
with  a  price.  This  makes  it  worth  while 
to  live.  Under  the  benediction  of  this 
privilege  you  have  been  studying  here. 
It  will  rest  still  upon  the  few  of  you  who 
mean  to  take  further  opportunities  of 
study.      For  the  end  of  all  preparation  is 


8S  THE   RELIGIOUS   VALUE 

fitness,  efficiency,  better  service,  and  the 
star  at  the  end  shines  along  the  whole 
path  that  leads  to  it.  Service  is  our  goal. 
Most  of  you  within  the  next  few  weeks, 
all  of  you  at  no  distant  time,  if  God  will, 
are  to  take  position  for  service.  We  con- 
gratulate you  with  all  our  hearts.  What 
gives  us  courage  and  a  sense  of  worthi- 
ness in  our  lives  is  that  you,  like  others 
whom  we  have  tried  to  teach,  will  trans- 
mute any  fit  teaching  received  here  into 
active  ministry  for  men. 

None  of  us  forgets  one  of  your  number 
who  ran  the  race  with  you,  and  ran  it 
bravely,  not  without  hardship  and  sacrifice, 
and  has  fallen  just  as  the  goal  was  within 
touch  of  his  hand.*  It  will  never  be  a 
matter  of  indifference  to  you  that,  on  the 
day  when  you  were  set  free  from  tutelage 
for  your  life-work,  he  was  set  free  from 
the  bonds  of  this  mortal  body,  and  entered 
upon  the  untrammelled  service  of  the  life 
on  high.  By  the  mercy  of  his  Redeemer 
he  has  won  home.     May  the  Lord  receive 

*  Vincent  Noll,  died  May  13,  1902. 


OF   THE    OLD   TESTAMENT  89 

us  all  there,  with  him,  in  the  good  time 
which  he  knows. 

Brothers,  you  will  soon  be  scattered 
widely,  with  oceans  between  you.  We 
cannot  expect  ever  again  to  see  you  all 
here  together.  But  you  will  not  drop  out 
of  our  minds,  nor  out  of  our  prayers.  No 
joy  that  you  can  give  us  will  be  so  great 
as  the  knowledge  that,  wherever  you  are, 
you  are  fighting  the  good  fight  of  the  faith. 

The  promise  to  Israel,  fulfilled  after- 
ward in  Christ,  is  valid  for  every  servant 
of  Christ:  '*  I  Yahweh  have  called  thee 
in  righteousness,  and  will  hold  thy  hand, 
and  will  keep  thee,  and  give  thee  for  a 
covenant  of  the  people,  for  a  light  of  the 
Gentiles ;  to  open  the  blind  eyes,  to  bring 
out  the  prisoners  from  the  dungeon,  and 
them  that  sit  in  darkness  out  of  the  prison 
house "  (Isa.  xlii.  6,  7).  With  this  out- 
look, we  "  commend  you  to  God,  and  to 
the  word  of  his  grace,  which  is  able  to 
build  you  up,  and  to  give  you  the  inheri- 
tance among  all  them  that  are  sanctified  " 
(Acts  XX.  32). 


1    1012  01130  5093 


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